Rereading Books--Do You or Don't You?

I am an avid rereader of books, and I find myself having to explain why on a fairly regular basis in a variety of settings and situations.

I don't know why the concept of rereading is so foreign to some people.  I can't imagine just reading a book once, and saying, "That was cool" or, "That really got me thinking" or, "I am so appalled at this piece of garbage I can't understand how it's on the freaking best-seller list when I can't get my book published", or whatever.

The only argument I can think of against rereading a book, in fact, is the reality that there are so many books out there and only a limited amount of time.

But I am a dork.  I don't just read books, I live them.  I allow them to change my life, my philosophies, my beliefs, and my outlook on things.  Many of my books are in execrable condition, in fact, because I fall asleep on them, write in them, and occasionally throw them against the wall (yes, Stephen King, it's true ... I should have heeded your advice toward the end of the final Dark Tower book and just stopped when you warned me to).

I also learned how to read at a freakishly young age.  I read Cujo as a first grader, and as you can imagine, the book is rather different as a teen or an adult.  I can remember picking up a copy of The Thorn Birds at my family's beach house when summer when I was eight or nine (I'd read pretty much every other book there by then) and loving the writing, the history, the characters, but knowing somehow that I was missing the point.  There are some points you just can't get when you haven't reached puberty.

I've also found that books are very different to me based on where I am at in my own life.

I have read this book over 200 times.  I also teach it.

I was a child when I first read To Kill a Mockingbird, and so I identified with Scout.  I was a tomboy.  My father was a lawyer, and not just a lawyer but one that was occasionally involved in cases that touched him on a moral basis.  I was a tomboy with an older brother.  And so on.

As I grew older, though, I read Harper Lee's masterpiece through many, many lenses.  When I became a teacher and realized the cruelty that some kids are raised with, my heart ached for Boo Radley and the Ewell children.  Coming to the whole "the universe works" conclusion about life, dealing with rape on a personal level, recognizing that there are truly evil people in the world, understanding that change comes through a lot of hard work and bitterness over the course of time ... TKAM was always there for me.

And then there's the enrichment that TKAM gave me in terms of other works of literature.  I loved Joe R. Lansdale's The Bottoms (and strongly recommend it if you haven't read it), but I would not have appreciated it the same way if not for Lee's work.  My Truman Capote phase was far cooler because I just thought of him as Dill.

It's not just Harper Lee and, of course, Stephen King (whose Dark Tower series completely altered my belief system).

Simply put, there are almost no books I've only read once ... and I've read an awful lot of books.

So how about you?  Do you reread?  Are you a selective rereader (in other words, are there some books you'll tackle more than once, but it's not the norm)?  Or are you of the ilk that reads a book once and calls it good?

I don't judge any approaches, by the way ... I'm just curious about where the wider world stands on the issue (I know my family, friends, and students think I'm kind of bizarre regarding books).

My Bone to Pick with "The Lorax" Movie

So I saw The Lorax today (with Belle and my ex-husband).

Okay, it goes without saying that I'm going to be all over any movie adaptation of a book.  It's just my nature (no pun intended, heehee).

That's not my biggest problem with the new adaptation of The Lorax, though.  Well, not directly anyway.

Here's the thing ...

The bottom line of what I got from the movie is that allowing technological advances can lead to some dark, dreary, downright desolate places.  What appears to be shiny, flashy, and new is almost always merely a surface thing.

(MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW, ALTHOUGH YOU'LL STILL BE ABLE TO SEE AND ENJOY THE MOVIE)

The fictional city of Thneedsville is perceived as a paradise; its citizens, after all, don't know any better.  Their opinions are shaped on the unscrupulous, money-obsessed O'Hare, who's made a fortune selling air (said fortune, of course, would be threatened by trees, which make air for free).

It takes a boy named Ted, whose noble quest for returning trees to the world is initiated at first by his shallow crush on a girl obsessed with nature, to get to the root of the matter (sorry, the puns just keep writing themselves).  He gets the dirt from the Onceler (who is, annoyingly, human ... what exactly he was actually happened to be an open-ended question of my youth), who of course destroyed all the truffula trees and deeply regrets it.

So Ted convinces the good citizens of Thneedsville how valuable a tree is, how what's shiny and new and seemingly better than the original ... well, just isn't.

Is the irony of this movie, cute as it may be (and, to be fair, it is cute ... Belle adored it, and I was pretty entertained myself), basically serving as a new, flashy, graphically ingenious "new and improved" version of a classic, timeless book lost on anyone else, or am I just overly critical?

Sometimes my inherent need to hate movies based on books gets in the way ...

Mourning the Loss of Stephen King's "Rage"

When you throw a rock into the ocean, it creates ripples.  If you skim it, a skill my brother Adam possesses like you can't imagine (he gets eight or ten skips on a single rock sometimes), there are lots of small, fast indentations in the water.  

If you heave a huge boulder in, the splash--and possible impacts--are larger.

Both rock-skipping and boulder-hurling are kind of cool to look at, to contemplate, to consider the possible effects on the oceanic ecosystem beneath.

Which leads me to Stephen King's short novel Rage, which he wrote as his malevolent pseudonym, Richard Bachman ... and which is now out of print at his request.

I read Rage a long time ago, and rereading it had been on my agenda literally for years, but it was one of those things I never got around to doing.  Then, it was out of print--the other works in that omnibus known as The Bachman Books--The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man--have been republished as individual books under King's own moniker, but Rage was slightly more elusive.

I was over at Henry's a few weeks ago, and he was going through his vast collection of books (one of the things that I love about Henry is that he might possibly own more books than I do, a feat which takes skill).  My urge to read Rage returned and, when I mentioned it, Henry whipped out a copy of The Bachman Books.

Needless to say, I was pretty pumped.

If you don't know the basic premise to Rage, it involves a clearly disturbed high school senior named Charlie Decker who takes his Algebra II class hostage, killing two teachers in the process and keeping his classmates subdued (at least at first ...) with the gun he smuggled in.  

Yeah, it's disturbing.  Yeah, I get why King felt some guilt following the association of the book with a number of school shootings, most notably the 1997 shooting at Kentucky's Heath High School when senior Michael Carneal fired a .22 pistol at a youth prayer group, killing three girls and injuring five others.  A copy of Rage was apparently found in Carneal's locker.

Here's the thing, though ...

There are some deranged people out there.  A lot of them.  You can blame music, video games, books, Ted Bundy even infamously blamed porn for his murderous streak ... but it only goes so far.

I can't imagine that I'm making some sort of  negative judgment on Stephen King, who I think is pretty much one of the most amazing human beings on the planet, but ... well, yeah.

Because Rage is an incredible book.

King will go down in history as a literary master of characterization.  He doesn't pull punches, which is one of the reasons he's such a genius.  His characters are not always nice people, and they always--ALWAYS--have flaws.  They're real, people we can all imagine knowing in reality.

Yeah, Charlie Decker is off his rocker.  

However, he didn't get there by accident.  

His abusive father, who mistreated him physically throughout his childhood and went after him with a hatchet with murderous intent, who made a comment on a hunting trip that Charlie overheard about cutting off his mother's nose if he ever caught her with another man, unquestionably played a role.

As did his mother, who took him into her sewing room and comforted him with hot chocolate to mitigate his father throwing him to the ground with all his strength after he broke a bunch of storm windows (which seemed like a good idea to a three-year-old Charlie), who forced him to wear a formal suit to the birthday party of a girl he was crushing on because she wanted to make a good impression on the young lady's mother.

And let's not forget the science teacher that Charlie almost killed with a socket wrench shortly before the hostage-taking incident.  Yeah, that's the teacher that forced Charlie to the blackboard to solve a complicated chemical equation then yelled at the young man repeatedly when he couldn't get it right, who berated him in front of the class ...

Charlie had just returned to school following his suspension for the horrible beating which nearly resulted in the death of the science teacher when the events of the story begin.

Now, I'm not defending Charlie Decker, nor am I trying to portray him in any sort of heroic terms.  The kid was totally off the deep end.

However, consider the life lessons inherent in the totally unhealthy relationships between Charlie and his parents, the reminder of how valuable sensitivity is for teachers, not to mention others in positions of power.  It's ... well, just striking.

I was also stricken almost to the point of tears at moments of beauty that showed through very early in the book.

A girl I didn't know passed me on the second-floor landing, a pimply, ugly girl wearing big horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a clutch of secretarial-type books.  On impulse I turned around and looked after her.  Yes; yes.  From the back she might have been Miss America.  It was wonderful.

Tell me that's not brilliant writing, a truly remarkable sentiment that can really make you think about things differently.  The book is full of gems like that, and it's a shame that the stigma that surrounds school shootings has taken away a work of literature that contains not just brilliant writing but also an in-depth look into a disturbed mind and seeing that, like all of us, it is still capable of seeing good in the world.

I don't want to spoil the story overmuch, but the gist is that Charlie somehow gets his classmates to spill their souls, to come to terms with their own personal demons in the public forum he's somehow created inside the classroom he's co-opted.  Surely his ability to make a safe environment for his classmates while holding a gun--albeit loosely--on them is amazing.  

Obviously, there's more than a bit of Stockholm Syndrome alluded to throughout the course of the novel, not to mention Charlie gaining the upper hand in figures of authority ranging from school officials to the police getting him hard-core points with this classmates.

Consider these stories, though, that come to light in a kind of warped impromptu group therapy session that springs up while the body of a teacher goes into rigor mortis on the floor ...

* A girl publicly admits that her mother is a whore ... and she loves her in spite of it.

* A young man nicknamed "Pig Pen" shares the pain of being raised by a coupon-clipping cheapskate whose penny-pinching proclivities contribute to his one new shirt a year ... and hence his nickname

* The quintessential "nice girl" losing her virginity to the Big Man On Campus, finding it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and making it right by hooking up with a dirty, dangerous hoodlum at a local roller skating rink

And so on.

Issues for the ages, seriously.  These were worthy of conversation when the book was originally published in 1977 (when, by the way, I was not even a year old), and they are still relevant today ... perhaps even more so when you put the very fact of their longevity into the conversation.

Even the induced breakdown of the aforementioned BMOC by his classmates is an opportunity for discussions of huge portent by a huge population, young and old alike--this is a bridge-gapper if I've ever seen one ... and, as a high school English teacher, I've seen a lot.

I love books, which any regular reader of this blog knows.  I love to lose myself in books, and I love to discuss them.  If those discussions were kept to "safe" topics, it would be limiting.  

The best conversations are never based in mundane topics.  

You talk about why the Komen Foundation tried to stop their annual $600,000 donation to Planned Parenthood that was used exclusively for breast cancer screening just because 8% of Planned Parenthood's overall service involve abortions.  You talk about the banning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird .  You debate the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.  

I mean, that's how you learn.  That's how you grow.  If all of my friends agreed with everything I say, I'd be pretty bored.  

And that's how I feel about books.  The best books are the ones that bring out a visceral reaction in me, ones that make me think and want to engage in discourse with others to explore the human condition.

Rage was a perfect book for opening up the doors to conversations that are in the "let's not talk about it" zone, and that makes me both sad and scared.

As a final note, Marilyn Manson was interviewed by Michael Moore during filming of Bowling for Columbine.  Manson, who was tangentially blamed for influencing the unspeakable actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had this to say when asked what he would say to the Columbine kids and community if given the chance.

"I wouldn't say a single word to them--I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did." 

Conversations about school shootings are a veritable minefield, and I don't envy artists ranging from Marilyn Manson to Stephen King for feeling the pain.

I just think it's a shame that the opportunities afforded by Rage have been taken off the table ... because not talking about it, not thinking about it, avoiding the fact that there are potential Charlie Deckers in schools all over the country is definitely a step backward.

Special Favor: Who is (Are) Your Favorite Author(s)?

I'm doing a rather ambitious project with my high school students.  Basically, they need to choose an author of fiction to focus on for a yearlong project.  They'll have to read a book each quarter and do an accompanying project, then tie it all together with a final paper focusing on a theme that runs throughout the four books as well as analyzing how the author's life and experiences played a role in his or her works.

Phew!

Yup, like I said ... ambitious.  It might even be overly so, but I'm super-excited about it, and the kids seem to be as well.

Which brings me the favor part ...

A number of my students have asked for an author recommendation list, considering that the parameters include an author prolific enough to have four published novels.

I've made a list, but I tend to have tunnel vision at times with regards to literature.

If you would be so kind as to leave author suggestions (and perhaps a blurb about why you'd recommend a particular author), I would be unfailingly grateful :-)

Book Review: Tarrin P. Lupo's "Stash Your Swag"

Note to readers: I LOVE reviewing books; let me know if you're interested in having your stuff reviewed, and I'll happily do so :-).  

Tarrin P. Lupo’s Stash Your Swag is both history lesson and financial advisor … and it’s timely.  Very timely.

As a boy, Lupo learned that both of his grandfathers hid cash money, causing him to wonder aloud why they didn’t just go to the bank.  Turns out that, after being burned by the Great Depression, both men (gentlemen to whom Lupo dedicated his book) came up with creative ways to keep their money close at hand.

But isn’t that just one of those quaint, antiquated mindsets?  After all, there are a lot of people in the older quartile of American society who feel more comfortable dealing in cash. 

Shortly before my grandfather passed away, he told my mother and my uncles to “find the basket” in his house.  They had no idea what he was talking about, and tore the house apart looking for an answer to the mystery.  They finally located his secret stash, and there was so much money in it that my mother wouldn’t tell me a dollar amount.

Lupo’s question, following a brief overview of the banking industry and how they absconded with people’s money during the Depression, is whether or not this could happen again … and he explains how this very nearly happened in 2008. 

It’s not just banks, either … your money is coveted from many and varied directions, so Lupo’s advice?  Spread it out.  A lot.

Now, as I was reading, I was thinking to myself, “Self, I’d have to be a real idiot to leave wads of cash lying around.  I mean, I could hide some in my car, I suppose, since there’s only one set of keys.  And I could stick a couple hundred in a jar and bury it in the backyard … but I have dogs that revel in digging holes, and just my luck they’d find it.  There’s always the ‘Purloined Letter’ concept of hiding it in plain sight, I guess, but ..”

And then I decided I should get back to reading.

Am I ever glad I did!  The possibilities are endless, even in the yard (and much better glimmers of thought than my completely non-creative jar-burying concept—my personal favorite is the “fake bird house roof”).

Stash Your Swag is a real treat, one of those rare books that combines useful advice on a topic of wide  interest to the general public with relevant history lessons along the way.  And, uh, the history lessons aren’t boring … I learned a lot of really interesting stuff even as my brain was grappling with how to put a pond in my backyard so I could hide money in the middle of it.

You can sample Stash Your Swag online, although I definitely recommend that you buy it.  Useful + relevant doesn’t always equal a good read, but in this case, Lupo pulls it off with aplomb.

The versatile Lupo is also the author of the historical fiction novel Pirates of Savannah and a children's book, Catch that Collie!

You can learn more about Tarrin P. Lupo at his website or by following him on Twitter.     

Books That Changed Your Life

It's funny how sometimes different parts of your life come together to create perfect moments, especially valuable when you're trying to avoid writer's block (both on your blog and with your own writing).  

I'm a slapdash writer--a talented writer (as Stephen King once noted, "Talent is cheaper than table salt.  What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work")--but a lazy, disorganized, fits-and-spurts kind of writer, the kind of writer that will go weeks without writing a thing and then crank out thirty or forty amazing pages in twenty-four hours.

I'm working hard to develop better writing habits.  Really hard.   

And sometimes that leads to a perfect storm of keeping you from being at a complete loss for what to write about.

Writing for Zelda Lily has led to me staying on top of current events --> I created a Twitter account to follow news outlets (and interesting people with odd political ideas) --> I realized that one of my biggest problems as a writer is that I'm ... overly verbose --> I've added Tweeting every day to one of my writing goals since it forces me to be concise --> I found a cool piece on The Huffington Post via Twitter that gave me the idea for a blog post.

I've read a lot of books over the years, but the books that actually changed my life are in a category of their own.  I've put my top five down here, and I would encourage you to consider doing a post on this (it's actually a very telling and philosophical journey).

I've left a linky thing at the bottom of this post, so please link up if you go for this so I can check out the books that shaped and molded each of you.  Oh, and please feel free to leave comments ... I sort of thrive on comments (another motivation to keep on blogging, right ;-)?).

So, five books that have changed my life ...

1.  The Dark Tower (series of seven books) by Stephen King

Honestly, this series changed my outlook on the entire world.  It's what started my fascination with philosophy, with thinking about things on a higher level, of exploring the possibilities of parallel universes, of seeing how Shakespeare does not hold the patent on the concept of universal themes, of ....

Well, I'll stop rambling now.  

These books are not easy reads (they're very well-written and interesting and such, but you have to be willing to twist your brain in unusual and sometimes difficult ways to wrap your head around them); even Stephen King fans have struggled with these books.

All I have to say is, they blew my mind.  Totally blew my mind.

2.  The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

I first read this book when I was at my family's beach house one summer.  I'd read all the books I'd brought with me, and this was before we had cable television at the beach house, which contains an interesting collection of literature (basically, stuff that my mother and uncles read in high school, my grandfather's golf books, my grandmother's needlepoint books, and so on).  For some reason, The Thorn Birds had made it into this mishmash of books, and I figured one rainy summer day that I'd give it a shot.

It was the first time a book made me cry adult tears.  

As a fifth grader, I obviously had no concept of romantic love, but the story of a man and woman unable to be together, yet clearly destined for each other ... well, it planted a seed.

I think the book also made me appreciate my siblings more, to be completely honest.  There is a lot of death and loss related to the love between a girl and her brothers, and that pain was torturous to experience vicariously.  

For me to have taken on The Thorn Birds under the circumstances I did, it's evident that I wasn't getting along with Adam and Mary one rainy summer day when the beach was off limits and the card games had gotten boring (or I'd lost a lot and pouted away with my book).  Ironic that said book reminded me of how important they are to me ...  

3.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

This book taught me how to read.  Well, this book and my father.  Before he went to law school, my father was a teacher, and he got really into reading with me.  This book was one of my absolute favorites, and I can still remember as my father's fingers moved over each word until I understood them.

I can still recite this entire book, by the way, and the words contained therein probably played some sort of role in developing my hard-core visual memory.  The brain is an amazing thing ...

4.  Centennial by James Michener

When I was in Honors English 11, my teacher had us choose an author to do a yearlong study on.  We had to read one of the author's books each quarter, write analysis papers, and the final paper required us to identify a common theme that ran through each book.

I was kind of a laissez-faire student (I did well enough, at least in English class, but I neither tried very hard nor cared very much), so I gave the list to my mother and asked her to pick an author for me.  She recommended Michener, and I figured I'd go with it.  I should have known better when my teacher asked if I was absolutely sure about committing to Michener ...

Yeah, many of Michener's books, Centennial included, weigh almost as much as my seven-year-old does ...

I pulled my usual procrastination act and left both reading the book and writing the paper until the night before, but ... wow.  I got it done, did well on it, and then proceeded to eat up Michener's entire canon.

The idea of a certain geographical location serving as almost a character, the cultures that mix together as years go by, and the connections that exist between geography, characters, history, and pretty much everything ... 

James Michener taught me that vitally important lesson. 

5.  My completed novel (currently titled Unbreakable, but that's of course subject to change) by Katie Loud

I've written a lot about the history of this novel (which you can read about here ... it's actually kind of an interesting story as I went from a middle schooler to an adult with the same work in progress), and I think it's a pretty good read (you can read excerpts here and here, and check out a list of 25 unusual and/or interesting things about it here (this was actually a really cool exercise, by the way, and I'd recommend any writer to do this).

Bottom line, this book taught me two extremely valuable lessons that no other book could.

1.  All fiction is, to one degree or another, a form of author autobiography.  It's all in the details.

and 

2.  I can actually finish something that I've started ... even if it takes me over fifteen years ;-)

So, what five books changed your life?  Link up here :-)

Here It Is, The Prologue to "Unbreakable" ... Please Read and React :-)

Okay, so I've been doing a lot of soul-searching regarding my finished novel. After taking in what you weighed in on (thank you, thank you, thank you :-)), I've decided to keep it a complete novel and just work on thinning it out. I started rereading it yesterday, and of course I've lost all sense of perspective on the beginning, since I've read through it so many times.

I figured, hey, I'll post the prologue (it's in three parts ... hmm, maybe this is why it's too long) and see what my lovely blog readers have to say. Please (pleasepleaseplease) weigh in :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from Unbreakable by Katie Loud
“Outlander!” she said as soon as he picked up the phone.

“Come on, now, Outlander, I was here first,” he said, but his response sounded uncharacteristically half-hearted to one who knew him as well as she did.

“You okay, champ?”

“Yeah. There’s some stuff going down, that’s all.”

“Want to talk about it?”’’

“I’ll call you in a few days. Fill you in then.”

“Okay. If it makes you feel any better, we’re in the midst of a crisis here, too.”

She sensed a grudging smile when he spoke again. “Trouble in paradise?”

“You could say that.”

He paused. “She’s having a baby.”

“And that’s a problem because?”

His voice was stony. “Some bloodlines should die out.”

“Maybe.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Reliving the past, I guess you could say.”

He laughed, but it was void of any joy. This disturbed her; he was most memorable to her for his resolute happiness in the face of disaster. “Reliving the past? I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of that tonight.”

“Be well. I love you.”

He wanted to tell her everything then. If anyone would understand, it would be the voice on the other end of the state-of- the-art cellular phone that wasn’t on the standard consumer market yet, but he couldn’t. He could only echo her own words back. “I love you, too.”

I.
(Susy; Emerson, NH; September, 2006)
I felt revulsion toward my son today.

There have been times in the past that Seth (and, to be fair, his siblings) has upset me … but never anything like this.

Never before have I been unsure I wanted to lay claim to him.

“He’s only twelve,” my husband told me when I called his cell in near-hysterics. “He doesn’t get it.” He let me rant for another minute before interrupting to say that he was calling the school as soon as he hung up to request that he be called first in the event of further disciplinary issues concerning our children.

Of course, I started laughing. “That isn’t funny.”

“Yeah, I’m getting the impression that you really feel that way,” he said soberly, only making me laugh harder. “Okay, I’m in the middle of a meeting, but I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”

“Is there any way you could pick the kids up from school?”

“Sure, no problem.” He paused for a minute. “Honestly, Susy, it really isn’t that big a deal.”

“No, it wouldn’t be to you,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended.

He didn’t say anything for a long second. “You’re not implying …”

“What, that you’d ever refer to a scholarship student as welfare trash? That you’d use the word spic? No, I know you wouldn’t. That’s the thing, we’ve raised a kid willing to bully someone because of their race or socioeconomic status.”

“He’s a good kid, and I’m not making excuses. I’m probably more upset about this than you are.”

“You just keep the histrionics out of it, right?”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “You said it, I didn’t. Seriously, I have to go, Suse. Eddie just came out and tapped his watch for the third time.”

I laughed, picturing our gentle, stereotypical, compulsive accountant. “Okay, I’ll see you in a few hours, then.”

“I love you, Susannah. Things’ll be fine, okay?”

“Okay. Love you.”

I hadn’t been off the phone for five minutes before it rang again. I wasn’t at all surprised when I heard my mother-in-law’s voice; I lucked out like you wouldn’t believe in terms of in-laws. “I heard,” she said, knowing there was no need to elaborate. “Here’s what I want you to do. Write a letter to Seth explaining why this was particularly upsetting to you.”

“Write a letter?” I asked dubiously.

“You won’t be able to talk to him without getting worked up.”
I tried it out in my mind. Dear Seth, No matter what my last name is now, I started out as welfare trash. Love, Mommy.

“That’ll be a more useful lesson than the week of detention he got at school.” There was a coldness in her voice that I’d never heard before in relation to her grandchildren. I suddenly realized that she was as furious with my son as I was.

“I’ll think about it,” I hedged.

“Want to drive down to Portsmouth, get some lunch?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be writing a letter.”

“Now, don’t worry about what he’ll think. He’ll hear the whole sordid truth at some point regardless.”

After saying goodbye, I went into my office and fired up the computer. I thought for a long moment about the thousands of books I’d read, suddenly realizing that my hysterical reaction to Seth’s harassment of a financially underprivileged Hispanic kid screwed from the start at a school like Stephens Academy served as a prologue of sorts to a much longer story.

II.
(Roy; Boston, MA; September, 2006)
I'm sure that to some people, memories are indeed the proverbial priceless gem that can be brought out to examine and relive with positive connotations.

My memories give me nightmares for a week.

That's not precisely true, of course; some of my memories are wonderful. It's just that most of the good ones gleaned over the course of thirty years occurred after I was fourteen. It’s the years before then, though, that my mind is focusing on now as I sit alone in the study of the Boston penthouse that Addie and I have lived in for the past five years, wishing that I was a drinker. Conventional wisdom states that nothing helps tragedy like alcohol (until the next morning, anyway), but I can’t keep myself from holding true to a promise I made when I was just a kid that I would never drink.

Adelaide is in our bedroom crying. She doesn’t want my comfort; I caused every one of her tears.

It started out as a typical day. The team flew back to Boston early this morning after a two-week road trip. Although the stretch was highly successful (especially when you consider the roller coaster reputation of the Red Sox), we were instructed to report to Fenway for extra batting practice immediately after getting off the plane from Detroit. I was home at six o'clock, toting two suitcases and a dozen red roses for Addie. Because I can't read (a long, complex story unto itself), Ad and I leave "audio notes" on a tape player that sits on the kitchen counter, nestled between the toaster and the can opener and as inherently necessary. Sure enough, there was a fresh tape in it. Arranging the roses in a glass vase, I pressed the play button.

"Hello, my shortstop in shining armor." I smiled at the sound of Adelaide's sweet voice. "I'll be home around seven. Take a look at the newspapers on the counter. Another Gold Glove for Pentinicci?, Pentinicci Leads Sox to Fifth Victory in Six Games, Can Roy Pentinicci Make Those Who Called his Team the Dead Sox Apologize?, Roy Pentinicci Takes the Growl Out of the Tigers. I’m so proud! I'm thinking take-out for dinner tonight. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those days. See you at seven. I'm so glad you're home, Roy, and I have some wonderful news for you. Love you."

I picked up the newspapers on the counter, bemused as always with the media's obsession with me. I was named People's "Sexiest Athlete Alive" last year, an occurrence that tickled Adelaide as much as it embarrassed me. I hadn't wanted celebrity, hadn't asked for it, but somehow or other, it had happened. Addie's brother Christian, my closest friend since we were five years old, jokes that I was born for the spotlight, but we all know it's just teasing. My personality is unquestionably extroverted and I’ve been known to be somewhat vain about my looks (to quote Adelaide, "Roy spends more time in front of the mirror than I do"), but inside, there is someone to whom celebrity is impossible, unattainable, unimportant, insignificant. I stared at the head shot accompanying the article discussing my Gold Glove candidacy; it was unmistakably me, hat askew, go-to-hell grin on my face, but I wondered if anyone could look at that picture, see through the windows of my eyes and glimpse the demons that lurk beyond, the darkness that plagues my nights.

I had forty-five minutes before Adelaide was due home from her thankless yet somehow fulfilling job as a social worker for the city of Boston, so I went upstairs to unpack and shower. After ordering pizza then throwing on jeans and a T-shirt, I put on a Simon and Garfunkel CD and dozed on the couch.

When Addie's keys jingled in the lock, I rose to meet her. "Hey, gorgeous, long time no see," I said softly.

She dropped her briefcase and ran to me. "I missed you so much!"

I was lost in her, the sweet, spicy smell of her tanned, flawless skin against mine, an overwhelming feeling of completeness. I'd known Adelaide since she was three years old, but I don't know when it was that I realized I loved her. Even when I went through the notorious stud phase (the object of which is to see how many notches you can get on your belt), she just waited for me to see what had been in front of my face all along.

"So how’s life in the big city?" I murmured against her hair.

“Amazing for me, heartbreaking to hundreds of kids."

“Why do you do it?”

She smiled, and it erased the exhaustion from her eyes. “Because I love it.”

“Because you love it?”

She countered, “Why do you chase a ball around? Hit it with a stick?”

“Hmm,” I said. “Because I love it.”

“Because you love it?” She hung her keys on the designated hook and dug her cell out of her purse.

“Who you calling?”

“Pizza.” Like me, she had the local delivery place on speed dial.

“Already ordered. It should be here any minute.” When the buzzer rang, I pressed the intercom button and said, “Be right down.”

“I’ll go,” Addie said even as I stepped into my well-worn Nikes. I knew she’d offer, just as I knew she expected me to insist, like the nights we’d be in bed and she’d mention a hankering for the pint of Ben and Jerry’s downstairs in the freezer. She’d say she’d wait until the next commercial if we were watching television, and I’d end up running downstairs to get it.

“I don’t mind,” I said, pulling two twenties out of my pocket. “Be right back.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

I took the elevator down to the lobby, although usually I walk. There’re an awful lot of flights to run down when someone who gets paid minimum wage is waiting on you. The guy in the red and blue uniform holding the cardboard pizza box was just a kid, but his eyes widened when he saw me.

“Pizza for Jim?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah. Jim. That’ll be twenty-one dollars and eighteen cents.” He pulled out a wad of bills and tried to make change while glancing up at me.

“Has it cooled down at all outside?” I asked. The day had been unseasonably warm and humid.

“Cooled down? Yeah, sure. Sure it has.” He took a deep breath. “Are you Roy Pentinicci?”

“You’re pretty good, man. Most people don’t recognize me without the hat.”

“Wow. Holy shit.” He colored, looking even younger than the sixteen or seventeen that he was. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“No sweat. I spend half my time in a dugout.”

He turned an even deeper shade of red as he held out a pen and a paper menu from the pizza place. It shook like an October leaf from New Hampshire in his hand. “Could I have your autograph?”

“Sure.” Kevin, the building security guard, started to approach, but I waved him off. I signed my initials in straggling, child-like penmanship then handed the menu back to the kid. “Have a great night.”

“Wait, what about your change?”

“Keep it,” I said.

Kevin keyed the elevator open for me. “Recognized by the pizza guy?”

I smiled. “The world is full of all types, my friend.”

“That’s for sure. Heard you swept the Tigers.”

“Yup. It was a good trip.” The elevator arrived, and I stepped on. “Have a great night, Kevin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pentinicci. You too.”

When I returned, I saw that Addie had set the table. “I come in pizza,” I said, an old line.

She smiled anyway. “Good, I’m starving. What took you so long?”

“The pizza guy wanted an autograph.”

“And you aren’t even wearing your uniform.”

Addie is not one of those anorexic must-fit-into-my-size-six-jeans-so-no-dessert-for-me types, but she’s a slow, almost methodical eater. They always try to clear her plate before she’s finished eating at a restaurant. I watched her scarf two pieces of pizza and reach for another slice with amusement. “Do you have a tapeworm or something?”

“Or something.” Her eyes sparkled with happiness and, underneath, uncharacteristic unease. "That’s my news, sweetheart. I'm pregnant."

My father had died more than ten years earlier, but I could feel him rising up in me. I clenched my fists, fighting for control, not comprehending what Adelaide had said although I’d heard it loud and clear. "What?" I said in a voice that was deeper than mine, a decibel that seemed to come from the past, a rumble that haunted my dreams.

"I thought you'd be happy," she whispered, although I saw in her eyes that she was lying.

"We've talked about this a hundred fucking times!" I struggled to keep from yelling at her, to keep my anger in check. You're not like him, Roy, you're not like him.

"Don't swear at me."

"Fuck! Shit!” I yelled, embarrassingly aware of my immaturity. “I don't want a goddamned kid, Addie! You know that. We agreed to it when we got married!"

"You agreed to it when we got married," she said quietly.

I sat up, moving away from her. "Shit," I whispered, running a hand through my hair, a nervous gesture left over from childhood. "Oh, shit."

"You love kids. Susy and Christian's kids ..."

"It's not the same thing, and you know it."

"Why the hell not?"

"Who's swearing now?" It was juvenile, but I couldn't help it. If acting like an immature idiot would keep me from raising my fists to her, I would pick my nose, scratch my balls, and walk backwards through downtown Boston.

"Why does it have to be like this?"

I studied my hands, trying to choke the past down into the depths of my soul even as part of me knew that only vomiting it up would allow it to leave my system forever. There was a bruise that spread in an interesting array of greens and blues across the knuckles of my left hand. I’d acquired the bruise fielding a grounder in the last game of the road trip; it was fading, but I fixated on it now the way a drowning man would a life preserver. "Doesn't matter," I muttered, aware that I sounded like a petulant preschooler.

"Tell me why. Please."

"You know why." Oh, but she didn’t. She never would have married me if she had any clue what I really was.

"Roy?"

"What?"

“A lot of people overcome bad childhoods. A lot of people. It's not fair to either one of us that your childhood limits things. Isn’t it about time you move beyond it?"

"You don't understand," I mumbled.

"I would if you'd tell me."

"Not to change the subject or anything," I began, effectively doing just that. I had to; thoughts of a girl named Angie Cantor who would now be around fifteen were flooding my head. Angie, who looked at the world through my eyes and would never have to stress about getting a suntan because of her naturally olive skin. "But how the hell did this happen?"

"I stopped taking the pill," she whispered.

A pulse throbbed in my head. "What?" I roared. And the litany You're not like him played over and over in my mind.

I saw fear in Adelaide's eyes, an azure gaze of terror, and I was sick. Sick. I stood up and almost ran into my study while Addie went to our bedroom alone.

And so here I sit, faced with a past that I have buried deep enough to function in life, but not deep enough to forget. I don't think it could ever be buried that deep. Addie can talk about getting over a bad childhood, but she doesn't get it. How could she? that voice inside my head whispered. You’ve shared very little of yourself with her, when you get right down to it. Her parents, who pretty much raised me from the time I was in first grade, would understand, I think, and I know that Christian would, but they are my wife’s family first, and that complicates things too much.

I haven't forgotten, can never forget, but I'm sure that there are details that have mercifully fogged over in the passage of time, and do I really want to remember them? Am I prepared to face my own voice cracking with preadolescence, the words of a boy trapped in a situation he can't get out of? Do I want to return to hell? Although I got out, the feelings of loneliness and isolation that nobody even guessed about never really left. And of course there were the years of wondering where Gina was, if she was alive and safe and okay.

It kills me to think of Gina, even after all this time. And sometimes, even though I know it’s impossible, I think that maybe she’s still out there somewhere. When I go to put flowers on the headstone, I pretend that the casket is empty, or maybe that it isn't really my sister underneath all the dirt. I know it’s undoubtedly her body in the high-priced mahogany coffin this time; I watched her die, held her lifeless body and cried, but part of me always hopes.

Wallowing in the past was old hat, but what about my present life with
Addie? I gave when I could, did the dishes, went grocery shopping, discussed her work and my own with her, but it hit me with sudden clarity that I’d never really made a conscious effort to do a whole lot for her beyond showing up at her request to meet with troubled kids that needed motivation that might or might not come in the form of a real live baseball star. If she wanted to have a baby, she should have been able to discuss it with me. How many times, I wondered guiltily, had she tried to broach the subject?

I could even understand why she might think that my attitude about having children had changed. I absolutely adore my nephews and nieces; in fact, Seth, Amanda, Aaron, and Lucy had stayed with us for a week in Februay while Christian and Susy went to Aruba, and it was one of the best times of my life. They were enchanted with Boston, and I loved being able to show them the sights, loved hearing I love you, Uncle Roy every night as I tucked them in and kissed them good night.

I know that Addie would be a wonderful mother, and I hate to deprive her of that, but I can't be a strong support to her the way that Christian is to Susannah. He’s frequently away on business, of course, but the first thing he does when he gets home, no matter how tired or jet-lagged or cranky he might be, is to take the kids out of the house and let Susy have a few hours to herself. In addition to the horrors of the past, I’m too selfish to be a father. The status quo of my life works for me, and I don't want to rock the boat, don't want to upset the applecart.

I stood up, hating the way that my hands were shaking. I was a man now, a major league ball player, for Christ's sake, not the scared, helpless, isolated fourteen-year-old who only lived in my nightmares. Angie was in California with parents that loved her. She is okay, she’s (WHERE IS ERICA SCOTT NOW?) okay (STOPITSTOPITIWON’T THINKABOUTTHATNOTMYFAULT), probably surfing. Wondering why it was easier to think of Angie than that other (notmyfaultshedidn’ttellmeididn’tknow), I walked to the stairs, knowing that hesitation would cause a solid crack to exist in my marriage.

Addie’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. "Ad?" I ventured. "Sweetheart?"

She fixed me with an angry glare and choked out, "What?"

"I'm sorry. That sounds lame, but I don't know what else to say."

"It's not enough, Roy."

"I know. I, um, I want you to understand."

She sat up and looked at me. "You're going to tell me? About your parents and Gina and Mikey?"

I swallowed hard. "I should have told you a long time ago."

She looked at me, her eyes becoming gentle. "What about the baby?"

"I'll get used to it, I guess."

"Will you ever be happy about it?"

I smiled, although I was dying inside. "Probably. Now, hakuna mattata, okay?"

She nodded, and I sat next to her and put a hand on her stomach. Still washboard flat ... a baby. My baby. Oh, fuck.

"Roy ..."

"You wanted to know, Addie. And I need for you to understand why this baby thing is so hard for me."

And then I started talking.

Rediscovering "The Bobbsey Twins" Through My Daughter's Eyes

You know the books from childhood that you refind, reread, and reaffirm your belief that they are pretty amazing? It's a very cool experience ... but even better when you're able to bring a child along on the journey. Especially when it's your own child (although getting fifty seventh graders to love The Outsiders a couple of months ago was also pretty cool).

So a couple of nights ago, I asked Belle what she wanted for a bedtime story. She's at that awkward stage where the decoding part of reading takes away some of the joy in the storytelling. The books she reads on her own are kind of, uh, lacking in plot since they are limited in terms of word availability, and she's very into the "I'm reading YOU my bedtime story", so me getting to choose ... well, it was kind of a treat.

I took the task very seriously and started going through a pile of old books. Suddenly, I struck literary gold when I found The Bobbsey Twins 11-The Scarecrow Mystery.

Okay, let me explain. When I was right around Belle's age, I had a ruptured appendix and was in the hospital for a week (I don't get sick often, but when I do, it tends to be dramatic ... sigh). My grandmother had passed away just a few months before, so the hospital was kind of a hard place for my family to be, my grandfather in particular. Still, he wanted to make my days happier, so he bought a whole bunch of books for me, books that introduced me to the dual sets of twins, brunette Bert and Nan and blonde-haired Freddie and Flossie. Oh, and also this other lady:

Now, I know that The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew are not fine literature. They are formulaic, misogynistic, and kind of dated. However, those books made my days in the hospital much cheerier, and I eventually read the entire body of both series (and yes, I know they were, along with the Hardy Boys books, penned by ghostwriters working under the Stratemeyer Syndicate as Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene, and Franklin W. Dixon).

Anyway, my copy of The Scarecrow Mystery has doodlings that were done by a seven-year-old me while in the hospital on the inside front cover. And this particular Bobbsey mystery was my favorite, with the twins' random sighting of a scarecrow that seemed to move from one farm field to another somehow connecting with a stolen painting that was allegedly committed by the great French art thief La Fantom (obviously "The Phantom").

I read Belle the first chapter that night, the second chapter the next night, and two chapters (at her request) last night. I told her that, if I had a snow day today, we could finish the book.

Totally had a snow day. We finished the book, and the neatest part was that Belle kept stopping me to ask questions, to put forward her theories, and to make connections. It totally blew my mind and reminded me of how magical it is to be a child caught up in a story that was born in the brain of someone else.

Books are the most magical thing in the world. And yes, I'll be going to Barnes and Noble after it stops snowing to augment our Bobbsey Twin library since Belle is so enthused by these same characters that so enthused me fifteen years ago.

Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" Captures the Heck Out of a Small New England Town

Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge has been my "car book" for a couple of weeks now. I should probably explain, I'm sort of like squirrels when it comes to books ... I hide them everywhere so that I'll have one on hand for every occasion.

Right now, my upstairs book is The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family. My downstairs book is The Scarpetta Factor. My classroom book is Where the Red Fern Grows, which I've read a hundred times and still love.

And, like I said, Olive Kitteridge has been my car book for a bit so that when I have to go pick Addie up from practice (or when I'm stuck at really long red lights) I have something to do.

I think I ate something funky over the weekend, so let's just say that I went home sick under less than ideal circumstances with many a stop at random gas stations along the way. I'm feeling much better now, which is why I think (I hope) it was just, like, something ingested (or something that my pancreas wasn't thrilled about ... Chuck E. Cheese pizza? Perhaps) instead of a bug. But I'm way off track ...

Yeah, the point is that I brought Olive Kitteridge inside to read while I convalesced, and just totally lost myself in it.

When I was in high school, I saw Grace Metalious' Peyton Place (Hardscrabble Books-Fiction of New England) on a library shelf. Although I'd heard many a sordid reference to it, I'd never read it. Needless to say, I got down to business and totally submersed myself in a world that was all too familiar.

Although I grew up on the New Hampshire seacoast, where we have more in common with Bostonians than the small town, stereotypical, "Ayuh"-stating hick, I am familiar with those small towns. Metalious had it down cold. As did Stephen King in Salem's Lot, John Irving to a certain degree, and Elizabeth Strout with the truly amazing Olive Kitteridge.

I'm not a book reviewer or anything, but I find it amazing when authors are able to capture the nuances of a region with such skill. It's like driving north a few towns, going into the general store, and bumping into some real characters ... totally relatable!

Scarlett O'Hara: Cold-Hearted Witch or Misunderstood?

My mother and I have a disagreement about Scarlett O'Hara. I am a glass-is-always-half-full kind of person; mi madre is more of a cynic. A standing argument concerning the true nature of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind heroine perhaps best demonstrates this.

I'm going to really briefly review the key plot points of Gone With the Wind, but I apologize in advance for its lack of brevity--the book is over 1,000in length.

Scarlett O'Hara is the eldest of three daughters born to an Irish immigrant father (he became the master of a plantation as the result of a lucky poker game) and a high-society mother (who abandoned said high society to marry a man far beneath her station because she was separated from the boy she loved). Scarlett is the belle of every ball and is totally used to having every man in the county eating from the palm of her hand. At a barbeque given by a neighboring plantation owner, Scarlett learns that the engagement of the only man she considers to be "in love" with, Ashley Wilkes, is to be announced.

In typical Scarlett fashion, she decides that Ashley is only marrying his plain, quiet, mousy cousin Melanie because he is unaware of how Scarlett feels about him. While the other ladies are napping between the barbeque and the ball to follow, Scarlett confronts Ashley with her true feelings, and he gently but firmly shoots down her advances. It gets a bit heated--she smacks him in the face and throws a vase at the wall after he leaves. She is humiliated to learn that the entire scene was witnessed by Rhett Butler, an acquaintance of the Wilkes family with a horrible reputation, who rightfully declares that Scarlett is no lady.

Stinging from Ashley's rejection, Scarlett agrees that very afternoon to marry Charles Hamilton, Melanie's brother. Their marriage is rushed by the upcoming Civil War (as is Ashley's marriage to Melly), but they still manage to conceive a child the few days they spend together before Charles goes to war. Sadly, Charles contracts measles and dies while at boot camp. In rapid succession, Scarlett becomes a wife, a widow, then a mother.

Not surprisingly, the situation is a bit overwhelming for Scarlett, so when Melly invites her to come visit her childhood home (which, as Charles' widow, Scarlett owns half of) in Atlanta, Scarlett jumps at the chance. Although she has to wear mourning clothes and live with Melanie (Ashley's wife, a fact which tortures Scarlett to no end) and Melly's maiden aunt, Pittypat, Scarlett loves Atlanta ... at least until Rhett Butler, now a blockade runner moving cotton overseas and bringing back goods (at a huge personal profit, naturally) shows up at a town event.

Rhett slowly but surely changes Scarlett, encouraging her to stop suppressing her natural passion. For example, he buys her a gorgeous bonnet while on a blockade run and convinced her to wear it in lieu of the black mourning bonnets society's expectations decreed (Rhett knew darn well that Scarlett had never loved Charles Hamilton and enjoyed torturing her about the fact). Rhett clearly enjoys Scarlett's company, although she can't figure out why he doesn't even try to kiss her, and the two become close friends. Rhett's presence in the house is made borderline acceptable because Rhett bought Melanie's wedding ring back for her after she'd donated it to "The Cause"; since Melly's reputation in Atlanta is beyond reproach (she is one of those people that always puts others before herself and never sees the bad in anyone), her approval of Rhett makes him kind of okay.

Wow, this post is going to be ridiculous if I keep this up. Okay, in a nutshell, Atlanta is basically destroyed by the "Yankees". Scarlett and company (Melly, Melly's son conceived while Ashley was on leave, and several slaves) flee to Tara (parents dead, sisters very sick). Carpetbaggers want huge taxes so they can take over Tara. Scarlett goes to Atlanta to convince Rhett to loan her the money in exchange for being his mistress. He refuses. She marries her sister Suellen's fiance, Frank Kennedy, who owns a store. Borrows money from Rhett to buy timber mills. Frank is killed in an attack. Scarlett marries Rhett, who is very rich by now. She still professes to love Ashely in spite of this. They have a daughter, adored by both of them. She dies while riding her horse, and Scarlett blames Rhett. He is devestated and falls into a pit of drunkenness. Melly dies. Scarlett realizes how much she loves Rhett and always has. Rhett decides to leave Scarlett forever in spite of her revelation. She decides to think of it tomorrow because "Tomorrow is another day." Phew!

My mother's take is that Scarlett got what she deserved. She was an awful person, she did horrible things, and losing her soulmate and the love of her life was just karma.

I tend to cut Scarlett some slack. After all, she was a product of her environment--her father doted on her and spoiled her rotten, and her mother's teachings were focused on surface appearances (don't accept a gift other than flowers or candy from a beau, for example) because she couldn't stand to open her heart even to her children after losing her lover. I mean, the Southern traditions combined with never being told no? What choice did Scarlett have?

She was only sixteen when she thoughtlessly married Charles Hamilton because she couldn't have Ashley. She was a child! Her early actions in Atlanta (dancing and laughing when she was supposed to be in mourning) are extremely immature, as is her longtime infatuation with Ashley Wilkes, a thinker, reader, and dreamer with whom she had nothing in common.

When Scarlett returned to Tara, she was suddenly responsible for everything. She faced everything from figuring out how to feed the remains of her family to taking down a Yankee soldier. She was hard as nails because she had to be; even her calculated marriage to her sister's fiance was done with the intent of taking care of Tara and her family.

Finally (and perhaps most tragically), Scarlett did eventually learn what love was. She realized that Rhett had fallen in love with her the day she met him and that she felt the same way too but was blinded by her "feelings" for Ashley. It was too late, though--by that point, as Rhett famously said, "I don't give a damn." Between that and the loss of Melly (who she also realized--far too late--was truly her best friend and sister), Scarlett is forced to pay a terrible price. I truly believe that--too little and too late, granted--she learned her lesson.

So what do you think? Is Scarlett a cold, vindictive bitch, or does she have some redeeming values?

Ink on the Face: Falling Asleep Unexpectedly

When I woke up this morning, I had weird black smears on my face. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the pages of my book had become superimposed onto my face.

Yeah, I literally fell asleep face-first on a book last night.

To fall asleep suddenly and unplanned and with no angst--I have been fighting epic battles with sleep my entire life, so this was a very odd experience. I'm not going to lie, I'd had Ambien plus migraine medicine and Valium (also for migraine and earlier in the day) so it's not like sleep should have been exactly elusive, but to just crash in the middle of a book, not even remembering it ...

I am fascinated by the nature of sleep. I don't think I've ever fallen asleep without "help" of one kind or another...ever. It wasn't like passing out, either, where the dizziness encircles you tighter and tighter until you drift away on waves of ... Well, whatever. It was--dare I say--what I always thought normal sleeping might be.

Is it me, or is there something magical about sleep?
Well, I'm off to replicate the task (with any luck ;)). Oh, and no Ambien tonight...I'm living dangerously ;)

The Significance of Setting

As any regular readers of this blog know, I have three careers--mother, writer, and English teacher. I take all three of these jobs very seriously, and I've noticed since beginning this blog the overlap that exists between my triumvirate.

Sometimes I think my brain can only focus on one thing at a time. At the moment, I'm completely hung up on setting. I've been rereading both my finished manuscript and my current WIP frenetically with an eye to setting. It's gotten me thinking a lot about whether or not where a book takes place plays a major role with readers' experiences with the piece.

Let me explain ...

I've been rereading Dennis Lehane's mystery series featuring private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. As private detectives, Patrick and Angie are able to investigate cases differently than police officers (for example, one of their best friends sells guns to criminals, but he helps them get a lot of information because he's in the midst of that world). What I really like about these books, though, is that they take place in Boston. Since I only live an hour away from Boston, I've gotten to visit that great city quite a bit, and it's really neat to see places and landmarks I know incorporated into literature.

I have to admit that I enjoy the quick, fast-paced, ridiculously twisty-turvy mysteries. I eat them up like popcorn. I love Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware mysteries, for example, but I wonder if I'd love them even more if I'd ever been to California. Does it really make a difference? And could it even go the other way ... in other words, is my interpretation of Kellerman's depiction of L.A. more true of what he intends than it would be if I'd walked the city streets and viewed the Pacific on my own? Would someone who's never been to Boston feel differently about Lehane's works?

I'm teaching summer school right now, and Walter Dean Myers' Monster is a hot commodity. The book takes place in a juvenile detention center in Manhattan ... and, of course, a courtroom. It struck me today how kids in a small New Hampshire town are able to relate to this decidedly different setting.

So how important is a book's setting? Can it detract as well as add to a reader's experience with a book? Is it limiting? Would it be better to have a work that could take place anywhere, a book that could appeal to everyone through its universality? Is that even possible : ) ?

The Best (and Worst) Last Lines

For writers and readers, there is a great deal of focus on the first line of a written piece, the grabber, the so-called hook. I agree that the way a work starts is vital--many readers, for example, judge whether or not to keep reading based on the first line.

As a writer, I struggle mightily with the last line, what we English teachers call "the clincher". I am horrific at ending my own writing ... I think that's why it took me fifteen years to write my first novel (and I'm still not thrilled with the ending). This is an area of constant struggle for me, and I'm just wondering if others feel the same way.

Why is there so much focus on first lines yet not as much to last lines, to the last thing a reader sees, to what he or she carries away with them?

John Irving is, in my opinion, the master of the last line. "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases" is as much the ultimate close to a book as "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed" (from Stephen King's The Dark Tower, natch) is the quintessential opening. However, Irving has a very interesting approach to his writing--he writes the last line first, and goes from there. All of his books have amazing ending lines (although my personal favorite is the aforementioned one from The World According to Garp), but I suppose it could be argued that Irving isn't really in the running were there to be a contest since he puts the same effort into his concluding lines that most writers put into their first ones.

In looking through my nearby bookshelf, I found the following noteworthy final lines:

"'Peter, my dearest heart. Peter. Hello, love. You see? I did wait ...'" (from Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons)

"'Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' them two guys?'" (from Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck)

"Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all." (from William Goldman's The Princess Bride)

"When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack." (from The Call of the Wild by Jack London)

"'I'm so glad to be at home again!'" (from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum)

"They will not know I have gone away to come back, for the ones I left behind, for the ones who cannot out." (from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros)

"I been there before." (from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)

With the exception of Twain and Goldman (and possibly London), none of these are particularly thought-provoking notions to leave your reader with. Does this mean that many (most?) writers share my difficulty with ending a novel, or am I just overly picky?

What is the best last line you've ever read in a book? What is the worst? If you're willing to share, what's the last line of something you've written (I'm not willing to share the last line of anything I've written ... my last lines are all crap ... I've definitely identified an area I need to focus on big-time as a writer)?

Books that Changed your Lives

I've read numerous books that have changed my life in some way, shape, or form. The most obvious is Stephen King's The Dark Tower, which made me contemplate the world we live in from directions I never would have otherwise, but there are many, many others.

I've listed my favorite books before, but I got thinking on my way home from work that there are a lot of books that didn't make the "favorite book" cut that have still greatly impacted me. In some cases, I don't even understand why.

I have a fondness for Jonathan Kellerman's murder mysteries. My personal favorite, Self-Defense, is about a young lady named Lucy haunted by a nightmare. What made this book special to me is that Lucy is the daughter of a one-hit wonder writer of the proverbial Great American Novel (think Salinger).

Speaking of Salinger, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield is perhaps the most honestly portrayed fictional character I've ever encountered. His obsessions, his obstinacy, his insanity ... it makes me feel better about what's going on in my own mind every time I read it.

When I was a kid, my neighbors left a box of books that didn't sell at a yard sale out in front of their houses with a "free" sign. I brought many of those books home, of course. One was a book called Angel by Samantha Harte (I think ... I'm not sure where my copy of the book is now). It was about a young girl traveling west with her family who ends up resorting to prostitution in the American frontier following a variety of family calamities. Very important lessons in that book, strange as it may sound. It was bawdy and crass in parts, but it was a very moral book at the same time, if that makes any sense.

Finally, I have to mention The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Yeah, they're kid books (there are five of them). However, the imperfections of the characters made me love them, made the standard hero's quest tale truly unique (and I still haven't forgiven Pythagorus for not allowing me to name Belle "Eilonwy").

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of others, but I want to know what y'all have to say. What are books that have changed your lives? They don't have to be considered fine literature (I mean, Kellerman can tell a good story, but he's probably not going down in history as the next Poe or anything ... and need I reiterate, Angel by Samantha Harte?), but I'm just curious to see what people have to say.

And, of course, I'm always looking for books to add to my reading list ; )

Increments of Time Don't Always Coincide

I'm sitting in the parking lot at Addie's school waiting for her to get out of chorus.

I took half a personal day to go to a Mother's Day tea party at Belle's preschool. That got done at two, and I contemplated going home knowing that I had to pick Addie up at 3:30, but I had to go to the bookstore and stuff, so then I figured I'd take Belle to the bookstore so I didn't have to go later. It seemed logical that this would sufficiently entertain her for an hour or so, then it'd be pretty much time to get Addie.

Big mistake! Belle has my bookstore addiction, and her wish pile kept growing until I checked out in self-defense. Plus, there were some WEIRD people hanging around the train table in the kid section.

So then we had,like, forty minutes to kill. I'm a lousy mother--I took her to Burger King, where she got this horrible Star Trek toy that says, "Kirk to Enterprise" over and over every time she presses a button.

She keeps pressing the button. Like, she's pressing MY buttons.

We've been in the parking lot of Addie's school for what seems like forever (especially considering Captain Kirk), and I'm wondering how I could have planned out the timing of things this afternoon.

Are most people able to make a schedule and stick to it? Plan things out and have them work? Figure out when it would be worth it to go home, stare at the clock for five minutes, and then go pick up the person you're supposed to pick up?

Here's Addie ... Gotta run!

The Five Best Books I've Ever Read

I realize that this is a very subjective list, and I'd be lying if I said that my list doesn't move around a bit. Or that there aren't some serious exceptions (putting Stephen King's entire body of work into one spot, for example) that might be playing it fair exactly.

But here they are, with brief explanations ... and in no particular order (since, again, it changes so much).

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Perhaps I just hold it a bit dear because I'm an insufferable tomboy and my father is a lawyer that tried in his way to stand up to some pretty horrific things, but there's no doubt that this is one of the most powerful books ever written. Plus, it managed to (briefly!) make me want to go to Alabama, just to see what it was like. Then there's the added bonus of Lee's portrayal of Truman Capote as a boy (embodied, if you didn't know, by Dill Harris). Makes me laugh, makes me cry, and I've read it over two hundred times.

2. The Dark Tower by Stephen King
When I get my Ph.D., it will focus on Stephen King--I'm a freaking aficionado like very few people are. With that established, I'm going to sneak in that not only are there seven books in the DT series, my argument is that every single book, short story, and laundry list King ever wrote falls under the DT umbrella.

3. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
It's very rare for a book about people who go around killing each other in a family feud that is of Montague/Capulet proportions to allow you to actually care about the characters. When Sonny Corleone was brutally shot down by a hundred bullets after being set up by his brother-in-law, I cried ... even though I'm aware of the death and destruction Sonny rained down on countless others. Puzo's masterpiece also gives secondary characters a far richer role than most authors afford them. It makes a difference. A huge difference.

4. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
I've never been a fan of the "they all lived happily ever after" brand of love story. I mean, that's just not the way real life goes. McCullough's Meggie Cleary and Ralph de Bricassart love each other with more passion and feeling than any sappy hero and heroine from the supermarket bodice-rippers, yet their love is forbidden in many and varied ways. That their love endures (well, kind of) despite these obstacles makes it seem real ... and all the more heart-wrenching for that. It's also a very interesting statement on the role humans play in their own destiny, on whether we have a choice at all, and whether we can walk away from that which seems to be eternally waiting for us.

5. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
This was a tough one, considering that I adore many of Irving's books (notably Garp, Owen Meany, and Hotel New Hampshire), but I really liked the way Irving was able to take a polarizing issue like abortion and present both sides in a rational yet sympathetic manner. I don't think anybody going in supporting choice changed their mind, nor do I think the pro-life contingency suddenly had a change of heart, but I think it was an eye-opener--a small one, but still an eye-opener. And if you've seen the movie, it doesn't count. READ THE BOOK.

The (Short) List of Movies that are Better than Books

If you're reading this blog, you've probably inferred that I much prefer books to movies. This is true ... and it is false. I love movies, and a blog post I just read that mentions one of my favorite movies ever, Major League, reminded me of my cinematic adoration.

In that vein, here's a list of cases where I believe the movie is better than the book. It's a short list, but that's because I truly don't believe it happens very often. Your thoughts are welcome, appreciated, and expected (since this tends to be a hot topic) : )

1. The Silence of the Lambs
2. Forrest Gump
3. The Lord of the Rings
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. The Neverending Story

And, of course, there has to be a tie. The book is on my top five. The movie is in my top two.

And that would be ... The Godfather, book by Mario Puzo, film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and just an experience everyone should have.