Everyday I Write the Book

"The Year We Left Home" by Jean Thompson

I think I just finished my favorite book of the summer.

The Year We Left Home, by Jean Thompson, is exactly the kind of book I love - a family drama spanning several decades with commentary about modern American life. The book is really more of a collection of related chapters, rather than a novel with a linear plot. It's about the Ericksons, four children in an unremarkable Iowa family: Anita, the beauty queen; Ryan, the smart one; Blake, the underachiever; and Torrie, the rebellious teen. Also in the mix is Chip, their cousin, who is a mentally unstable Vietnam vet when the book opens in the 70s.

I loved The Year We Left Home. It's full of the kind of realistic detail that makes you feel like you're in the room, watching the action unfold. There are few words in the book that ring false. These characters are flawed, to be sure, and their lives are full of disappointments and challenges. Midwestern America from the '70s to the '00s serves as the backdrop of the Ericksons' lives, from the two wars bookending the story to the tech bubble and the farm foreclosures of the 80s.

Because each chapter jumps ahead to different time periods and characters, The Year We Left Home isn't a linear story, as mentioned above. But there is a theme threaded throughout: the relationship these characters have to their Iowa hometown, whether they stayed or left, and the push and pull effect that home and family have on the lives we live once we become old enough to leave.

There are a lot of poignant passages throughout - here's one that I liked:

The sun slid over his face, warming it. It was a nice moment, and he felt a kind of useless melancholy at the idea that that the three of them would never again sit here in just such a moment and that no moment of life was like any other and as soon as you became aware of them, they were as good as gone. He must have been tired.

I found myself reading this one slowly, so that I could savor each page. Thompson builds subtle suspense and tension throughout the book, and minor characters make recurring appearances that tie the book together realistically without feeling contrived.

So, I'm recommending this one highly, if you like the same kinds of books that I do. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy. (Hi FTC! I think you'd like this one too. Especially the tech bubble part.)

"State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett

One of the books getting a lot of acclaim this summer - and there are many - is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I was a huge fan of Bel Canto - it is one of my top 5 favorite books - but I was disappointed with Patchett's later novel Run, which I reviewed here. Given the amazing reviews of State of Wonder, though, I jumped at the chance to read it.

When State of Wonder opens, Marina Singh, a 42 year-old pharmacologist for a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, learns from her boss, the head of the company, that Anders, her co-worker and officemate, has died in the Amazon. Anders had been sent by the company months earlier to check on the progress of a fertility drug under development in the Amazon by Marina's former mentor, Dr. Swensen, an ob/gyn who has left her practice to research a tribe in the Amazon in which the native women give birth into their 70s.

Anders' widow begs Marina to follow Anders' path in the Amazon and find her former mentor, in order to learn more about how Anders died. Meanwhile, her boss begins to pressure her to go as well, so that she can finish the investigation that Anders started on the trip.

Some have compared State of Wonder to Heart of Darkness. Marina's trip to the Amazon is one in which she must confront many of her fears, from the physical (snakes, natives, malaria) to the emotional, as Swenson still deeply affects Marina and her self-confidence. Patchett's writing is beautiful, as always, and she expertly creates narrative tension that is almost unbearable at times. Her teasing of information at key junctures through the story is masterful, especially in retrospect.  There are a few times that the story seemed to lag a bit, but looking back now that I have finished, I realize that those sections were necessary to the overall framework of the book.

I've been a bit vague in my description of the plot of State of Wonder because I don't want to give anything away. What I enjoyed most about the book were the moral questions Patchett raised in the book, about fertility, parenthood, and responsibility for actions that affect individuals and society.

I read and listened to State of Wonder, whose audio version is narrated by actress Hope Davis. She is an excellent narrator. She conveys a range of voices perfectly - from Marina's terror brought on by drug-induced nightmares to the infallible tone of Dr. Swenson.

Overall, a very good read. Not as good as Bel Canto, but that's a nearly impossible standard to meet. Thank you to Harper for the review copy.

Crowdsourcing a Summer Reading List

Yesterday, I took to Twitter and Facebook to find out which books people have liked recently. I asked a simple question - "What's the best book you've read this summer?" - and got a great variety of responses. Lots of fiction, some non-fiction and some memoirs. Lots of backlist. A few books were recommended more than once. A few books were ones that I have read and reviewed. I was impressed with both the range (these weren't just EDIWTB readers, who probably tend toward fiction) and the appearance of some older books on the list. (And who is David Mitchell? FOUR of his books are on this list!)

So at the midpoint of summer, I present the full list of recommended books. Hopefully there are a few on here that will catch your eye. You still have a few weeks of long days by the pool...

Books That Were Recommended More Than Once:

Bossypants, by Tina Fey (submitted by Kim, Emily, Julianna, Larissa, and Robin) (I reviewed Bossypants here.)

Open, by Andre Agassi (submitted by Vikki and Haleh). (I reviewed Open here.)

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (submitted by Ginger, Lizy, Helaine and @Blochead_Create). "Trouble putting it down."

The Invisible Bridge, by Julia Orringer (submitted by Tracy and Haleh).

Cutting for Stone, by Anthony Verghese (submitted by Mary, Krista and @LPags03). "Great."

The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins (submitted by @Kimvatpg and @centsiblelife).

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, by Anthony Bourdain (submitted by Anna and Brian D.). "Fragmented, but funny." "Each chapter is pretty self-contained, so you don't have to knock it out all at once. This book, like his other books and TV show, capture his wit, insight, and endless analogies for describing food."

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton. (Submitted by Becky and Christy). "Fun summer read."

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (submitted by Dan G. and Krista) (I started this one a few months ago and couldn't finish it.)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (submitted by Ryndee and Warren). "The best book I've read in a very long time." "A total knockout."

Fiction:

Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan (submitted by Stefanie).

The House of Tomorrow, by Peter Bognanni (submitted by Tina).

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi (submitted by Mike D.).

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (submitted by Catherine F.) "Good summer read." (I reviewed The Art of Racing in the Rain here.)

The Last Life, by Claire Messud (submitted by Arielle).

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell (submitted by Lilo).

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (submitted by Sarah K.).

And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie (submitted by Susan W.). 

Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (submitted by Brian S., the latter seconded by Lilo).

This is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper (submitted by Mike S.). (I reviewed This is Where I Leave You here.)

The Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon (submitted by Abby D.).

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (submitted by Tuvana).

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers (submitted by Colin).

The Unnamed, by Joshua Ferris (submitted by Sarah S.) (I reviewed The Unnamed here).

What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty (submitted by Rebecca). (I reviewed What Alice Forgot here.)

Skipping a Beat, by Sarah Pekkanen (submitted by @greggutierrez9).

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies (submitted by Lizy).

The Murderer's Daughters, by Randy Susan Meyers (submitted by Larissa).

The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht (submitted by Andrew H.).

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (submitted by Ryndee) (I reviewed The Help here.)

Before I Go To Sleep, by S.J. Watson (submitted by Larissa).

The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom (submitted by Larissa).

A Dog's Purpose, by W. Bruce Cameroon (submitted by Alison R.).

A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin (submitted by @RachaelGK).

Songs in Ordinary Time, by Mary McGarry Morris (submitted by Krista).

Those Who Save Us, by Jenna Blum (submitted by Holly).

A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (submitted by Holly).

140 Goats and a Guitar The Stories Behind Some Kind of Cure, by David Berkeley (submitted by Ryan).

I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson (submitted by Larissa). (I reviewed I Don't Know How She Does It here.)

Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones (submitted by Nicole) (I reviewed Silver Sparrow here.)

Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles (submitted by Nicole).

Non-Fiction

Friday Night Lights, by Buzz Bissinger (submitted by Dan E.) "Couldn't put it down."

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukerjee (submitted by Susan W.).

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis (submitted by Allen T.). "Best layman's anatomy of the real estate implosion I've seen thus far."

Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II, by Mitchell Zuckoff (submitted by Rebecca). "Not what I normally read, but I like the characters and the way the story has come together."

 

Memoirs:

In the Long Run: A Father, a Son, and Unintentional Lessons in Happiness, by Jim Axelrod (submitted by @blochead_create).

Life by Keith Richards (submitted by Andrew G.).

Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Albert Einstein's Brain, by Michael Paterniti (submitted by Amy W.).

Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Love and Loss, by Matt Logelin (submitted by Sarah S.).

Do you recommend any of the books on this list?

Guest Post: Kim Wright, Author of "Love in Mid-Air"

Last year, I read and reviewed Love in Mid-Air, by Kim Wright. (The book is newly out in paperback.) Kim graciously agreed to write a blog post for EDIWTB about how to write a second novel after you've had a successful debut. I find the process of writing one book incredibly daunting, and am in awe of anyone who can write one, not to mention successive novels, so I found this very interesting. Thanks, Kim, for an excellent post!

 

The Curse of the Second Novel
By Kim Wright

There are lots of myths about the publication process… and one of them is that once you’ve published your first book, you’ve got it made. 

After all, at this point you’ve cleared some of the toughest hurdles – you have an agent and an editor and presumably you’ve started the task of building a readership. You have, at least once in your lifetime, figured out the structure and pace of a full-length book and you’ve managed to control your nerves, your time, and your imagination long enough to get that puzzle on paper.  It would logically seem that the process of bringing out the second book would be, if not exactly easy, at least a little easier. 

But the woods are full of novelists whose first books were well-received and sold reasonably well… and whose second books fell to the ground with a great big thud.  Or, even worse, novelists who never managed to write the second book at all. Why is it so difficult to transfer the lessons learned in the first book to the second? And why do so many good writers fall victim to the sophomore slump?

I think there are several possible explanations.

In many cases the first book is the story you’re compelled to tell.  My friend Alison wrote her memoir as a tribute to her brother Roy, who died in a traffic accident as a teenager.  Without the memory of Roy whispering in her ear, she had to come up with a whole new set of motivations to write her second book. Writers often throw everything they have into the first book – the color of the sky that morning their granddaddy took them quail hunting, secret sexual fantasies, political opinions about offshore fishing rights.  No wonder there’s nothing left for the second one.

And then second novels are sometimes under a type of time pressure that first novels just don’t face. When you write your first book, you probably don’t have an agent or an editor. Absolutely no one is waiting for the book. So it’s not uncommon to hear of people who spent five, ten, or fifteen years getting it right. But the second time around, your agent may be saying “So what else do you have?” If you scored a multi-book deal, you even have a deadline. Which is all great, but some writers freeze under the pressure. It’s hard to produce book two in a year if book one took you ten.

And finally – and this may be the big one – the second time around you’re gun shy. You know all too well what can happen and even writers with successful first books have had moments of profound disappointment mixed in with the joy.  I’ve never met a writer, no matter how acclaimed, who can’t quote lines from his bad reviews verbatim or who doesn’t have a rueful story about the time he drove five hours to read to two people or the day his editor started to introduce him and completely blanked on his name. No one gets to be a virgin twice, and sophomore novelists rarely managed to muster up the same degree of rosy-cheeked optimism they brought to the publication of their first book.

This transition between the first book and the second is a tricky time, but if you can pull it off – or even just manage to get through it – it’s a significant watershed in your career.  Because this is the point where you move from “someone who wrote a book” to “a writer.”

Authors who are much farther down this path than I am have assured me that each book brings its own set of challenges and that it never really gets easier, only different. The blank page is the great equalizer. Writers must return to it time after time and when you’re facing that blank page, no degree of past accolades or fat royalty checks will help you.   A writing teacher I know, a grizzled veteran of the publication wars, was once asked which book was the hardest to write.  He said “Whichever one I’m working on at the time.”  There are no cheats.  There are no short cuts.  We reinvent ourselves with each new story.

And, in a weird way, that may be why we love this job so much.

Winner of "When Did I Get Like This?"

Congratulations to Melissa (the second Melissa who commented - #11), who won a copy of When Did I Get Like This? by Amy Wilson. Enjoy!!

Recent Blog Posts

Please allow a few non-book related links today. They are on topics that are equally important to me!

The first is a post I wrote for Parentables today called "7 Things Not To Say To A Twin Mom". If you have twins, some of this might sound familiar...

And the second is a post I wrote for my corporate blog about Petfinder's 15th birthday and a HUGE pet adoption event that it is holding across the country this weekend. Please help spread the word!

July Book Club: "Silver Sparrow" by Tayari Jones

The July EDIWTB book club selection was Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones.

Silver Sparrow is about James Witherspoon, a bigamist living in Atlanta in the 80s. He has two families - the public, legitimate one - which consists of his wife Laverne and his daughter Chaurisse, and the secret, illegitmate family - "wife" Gwen and daughter Dana. Chaurisse and Dana are the same age and often travel in the same circles, even though James' public family is better off and enjoys more luxuries than his private one.

Dana narrates the first half of the book, and we come to understand her love for both of her parents, as well as her obsession with her half-sister, for she has known about Chaurisse since she was little. Dana is pretty and smart, but she always feels inferior, like an outsider. She and her mother often stalk Chaurisse and Laverne, just to see what their lives are like, what they look like, etc. The second half of the book is told from Chaurisse's perspective. She and her mother are unaware of Dana and Gwen's existence. All they know is the middle-class life they've lived as a family of three.

James' relationships with Gwen and Laverne are very different - one is built on passion, one is built on responsibility and devotion. Similarly, James is a different father with Dana than with Chaurisse. But this is really a story of four women looking for the same thing: to be cherished, to feel special, to belong. Those universal desires are what makes the story heartbreaking, and what makes each character compelling and worthy of empathy.

About 2/3 of the way through the book, Dana and Chaurisse's lives intersect, and the story builds to the inevitable collision that the reader has expected from the beginning. Jones' writing is deceptively simple - Silver Sparrow is a smooth, easy read, but not a light one. It is full of narrative tension that propels the reader through the emotional minefields - current and inevitable - that the bigamist's life necessarily creates.

All that said, I finished the book a few days ago, and surprisingly, it hasn't really stayed with me. It didn't have the longevity that I expected it would.

Overall, I am really glad I read Silver Sparrow. I think that the attention it has received is deserved, and I am glad that I got to experience it. I'd love to read more by Tayari Jones.

Thanks so much to Algonquin for facilitating the EDIWTB book club for Silver Sparrow. And now... let's hear from you! What did you think of Silver Sparrow?

Happy Birthday Jumpa Lahiri!

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite authors: Jhumpa Lahiri. I greatly enjoyed The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth, and have Interpreter of Maladies on my TBR list.

Here is a bio of Jhumpa Lahiri from NPR's The Writer's Almanac today. I love that she didn't even know she had won the Pulitzer, and I also like what she said about her clear, simple writing.

It's the birthday of writer Jhumpa Lahiri, born in London (1967). Her parents were Bengali immigrants from India. When Lahiri was two years old, her father got a job as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island, and they moved to America. Her mother spent all day pushing young Jhumpa around in a stroller and making friends with everyone she saw on the street who looked Bengali. On weekends, the whole family would get together with other Bengali families, sometimes driving for hours to other states for a party. The adults cooked Bengali food and spoke Bengali and reminisced; the kids all watched television together.

Throughout her childhood, Lahiri wrote stories to entertain herself. She went to college at Barnard, then to graduate school at Boston University, where she earned what she called 'an absurd number of degrees' — an M.F.A, a master's degree, and a Ph.D. She loved to write, but she struggled to get her stories published. She was on the verge of going to work in retail when Houghton Mifflin agreed to publish her first book for a small advance. That book was The Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of nine stories about Bengalis and Bengali-Americans living in suburban New England. The plots centered on the ordinary details of marriages, families, jobs, cooking, and hosting parties. The Interpreter of Maladies came out in 1999, but the publishers didn't expect to sell many copies so they only released it in trade paperback. As expected, it didn't get much notice at first.

Lahiri had no idea that The Interpreter of Maladies was a contender for any prizes, and then one day she got a phone call. She said: 'I was in my apartment. We had just come back from a short trip to Boston and I was heating up some soup for my lunch. My suitcases were still not unpacked. And the phone rang. It was one or two in the afternoon. The person who called me was from Houghton Mifflin, my publisher, but no one I knew, and she said, "I need to know what year you were born." And then she asked some other fact like where I was born. I just told her. Sometimes people need some information for a reading, for a flyer or something. And then she said, "You don't know why I am calling, do you?" And I said, "No, why are you calling?" And she said, "You just won the Pulitzer."' It was the first time a paperback had ever won the Pulitzer. The Interpreter of Maladies became an immediate best-seller. Lahiri was uncomfortable with her new fame — she said, 'If I stop to think about fans, or best-selling, or not best-selling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.' So she doesn't read reviews, and she keeps her Pulitzer wrapped in bubble wrap.

Her next book was a novel, The Namesake, another best-seller about Bengali-Americans; and her third book, a collection of stories called Unaccustomed Earth debuted as No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list.

Jhumpa Lahiri said about her writing: 'I like it to be plain. It appeals to me more. There's form and there's function and I have never been a fan of just form. My husband and I always have this argument because we go shopping for furniture and he always looks at chairs that are spectacular and beautiful and unusual, and I never want to get a chair if it isn't comfortable. I don't want to sit around and have my language just be beautiful.'

"When Did I Get Like This?" by Amy Wilson

I attended a mom blogger conference last spring and met Amy Wilson, an actress and mother of three who, in addition to her one-woman show (Mother Load), wrote a book about motherhood called When Did I Get Like This? The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer & Other Mothers I Swore I I'd Never Be. Amy offered me a copy of her book, which was recently out in paperback. I accepted it politely, but to be honest, wasn't sure I'd want to read it.

There are a lot of books about motherhood out there, and while they might be funny and original, I don't always find them that compelling. First, there's that whole non-fiction thing. But more, I think it's just that I have often lived through what the book is about - pregnancy, infancy, cranky toddlerhood, etc., and I just don't find it that enjoyable to read about someone else's experience with the same stages.

Until Amy Wilson's book.

From page 1, I just sailed through When Did I Get Like This?. She's funny, she's self-deprecating, and she has a way of making you nod along with her, reliving the ups and downs of motherhood while making you feel better about the whole thing. She isn't always a perfect mom (because who is?), and it's just fun to hear her relay the challenges that so many of us have been through.

Plus she's a very good writer and she's insightful.

Here is a passage about choosing a Facebook profile pic. With kids? Without kids?

The ideal of the woman who 'has it all' is predicated on that woman keeping her worlds totally separate. She doesn't begin meetings talking about how the baby can sing 'Old MacDonald'. She doesn't close the deal with an raucous breast pump anecdote. We mothers can continue to participate in grown-up society only if we don't let our mothering lives leak into our professional lives. We are of interest to the real world only to the extent that we don't remind anyone of our real world. We mothers, like our children, are supposed to know our place.

I am recommending When Did I Get Like This? even to those who have shied away from these types of books before.

And - good news! I have a copy of When Did I Get Like This? to give away to an EDIWTB reader. Just leave me a comment with your email here before Friday July 15, when I will let random.org pick a winner.

Good luck!

"Body Surfing" by Anita Shreve

I picked up Body Surfing on audio at the library a few weeks ago because 1) I like Anita Shreve, and 2) I bought the hardcover at a used booksale earlier this year and I like to read the paper version along with the audio.

Body Surfing is about Sydney Sklar, a woman who divorced her first husband and lost her second to a brain aneurism, all before the young age of 29. She is spending her summer working as a tutor to Julie Edwards, a high school student, at Julie's family's beach house in New Hampshire (the same house that has been the setting of a few other of Anita Shreve's novels). When the book opens, Julie's two older brothers, Ben and Jeff, have arrived at the beach house for a visit, and the book is about the ramifications of that visit and the effect the brothers' relationship has on Sydney and, ultimately, the rest of the family.

Anita Shreve is a good storyteller. She's a precise writer, if a bit cold and unemotional. Body Surfing is told in short sections, many consisting of only a few paragraphs, and the book goes by very quickly. I liked Shreve's descriptions of the Edwards family - she conveys a lot about a character simply by describing their clothing and their mannerisms, a minimalistic style that contributes to the quick pace of the story.

Plotwise, it was a little weak. The whole book hinges on one decision by one person, which was motivated by a desire to hurt a second person. That motivation is ultimately not very convincing. I wish that Shreve had spent more time laying foundations for what happened, rather than just rushing through the whole sequence of developments at the same brisk pace that the whole book followed. In retrospect, there was so much in the book that was unrealistic or just not adequately addressed. Sydney, too, was a frustratingly passive character. "Body surfing" is a good description of how she lives her life, buffeted by the the actions and motivations of other characters and barely able to assert control over the direction in which she moves.

Good vacation read, for sure; but not great literary fiction. Perhaps that's like many Anita Shreve novels - it has been a while since I have read anything by her.

As for the audio - I know I complain about this a lot, but the narrator overanunciated, which always bugs me. But it wasn't bad, overall. I found that I liked the book much better - it went much more quickly and there was more momentum and tension. Oh - there are some INCREDIBLY cheesy and highly distracting musical interludes spread throughout the audio version, especially in moments of high tension. Not good.

Overall, a good read, not a great one. But fine if you're looking for something on the light side.