Book Review: Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

I think Stewart O'Nan must reinvent himself more than any other modern US author. Many, if not most, writers have a type and they stick pretty closely within a certain range. Philip Roth likes to write about the lives of Jewish upper middle class men. Jodi Picoult picks an "issue" and then uses multiple narrators to write around it. William Faulkner liked to chronicle lives in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Flannery O'Connor was peerless at finding the gothic in the quotidian. You can be sure that characters in Barbara Kingsolver's fiction will advocate for social justice.

With Stewart O'Nan, however, you get a different book every time he's at bat. In A Prayer for the Dying, set in post-Civil War Wisconsin, he pulls off a beautifully, if tragically, conceived novel in what may be the only successful use of a second-person narrative I've ever read. In Everyday People, he narrates vignettes from various African-American perspectives from the inner city neighborhood of East Liberty, PA. The Circus Fire is a narrative nonfiction piece about one of the worse tragedies in Hartford, Connecticut's history. In Songs for the Missing, he explores the psychological ramifications that a missing girl has on her family and in her small town at large.

So I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up his new novel, Emily, Alone, forthcoming from Viking in March 2011, but I knew it would be worth my time. It turns out to be the story of Emily Maxwell, a woman of a certain age, who muses alternately on her loneliness and her newfound independence in widowhood. (What I did not know until after finishing the book is that it is also a sequel to O'Nan's previous novel, Wish You Were Here. I had no idea when I picked up the advance reading copy that it was the case, so I can assure you with impunity that it's not necessary to read WYWH before reading E, A.)

There aren't enough pieces of good fiction being written about older generations (2009's The Leisure Seeker, while dealing with a pair of octogenarians, was not particularly well written) and Emily, Alone goes a long way to fill that gap. It is thoughtfully done, getting into the mind, heart, and memory of an elderly woman in a thoroughly convincing way, evoking her loneliness poignantly but without resorting to emotional manipulation or sentimentality: it's just a simple fact that once you reach a certain age, you must face the possibility of outliving your circle of friends. But there are warm moments, too. Emily learns to drive again, trading in her husband's behemoth of a gas guzzler in favor of a Prius, so that she might zip about town, visiting the art museum and planetarium on their senior discount days with her sister-in-law, Arlene. She has ongoing conversations with her dog, who is also old and gray and full of sleep. She muses on the changing demographics of her once upper middle class neighborhood and of Pittsburgh in general. In short, she tries to live a full life, consciously reaching beyond her loneliness to add both meaning and structure to her days.

O'Nan is one of the most versatile storytellers I know, and this book further clinches his place in the modern American pantheon of writers.

~Emily

Pioneer Valley Children's Book Exhibit

For those folks living in, around, near, or feel like traveling to the Pioneer Valley in Western Mass (an area consisting of towns such as Amherst, Northampton, & South Hadley), a traveling area picturebook exhibit is making its final stop.


The Making of a Picture Book: The Marriage of Text and Art is an exhibit curated by Mount Holyoke College Professor and author, Corinne Demas. The exhibit focuses on these four picturebooks:

Hans Christian Andersen's The Perfect Wizard
written by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Dennis Nolan
9780525469551, Dutton Books (Penguin), $16.99

The Littlest Matryoskha
by Corinne Demas, illustrated by Kathryn Brown
9780786801534, HarperCollins, $15.99


Once I Ate a Pie
co-written by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest, illustrated by Katy Schneider
9780060735319, HarperCollins, $17.99

Ten Times Better
by Richard Michelson, illustrated by Leonard Baskin
9780761450702, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books, $17.95

The exhibit has toured around the Pioneer Valley, most recently at Mount Holyoke College, and now is installed in its final exhibit space at the Forbes Library in Northampton (20 West Street, Northampton, MA - 413.587.1011). The exhibit will be up through the end of May. Stop by and check it out!

-Rebecca

National Poetry Month: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As spring so often brings a little rain into our lives, I thought I'd share my favorite rain poem with you. In particular the last line is something I often repeat to myself.

The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
  And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
  And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; 
(image by Marinshe)                        Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
  Some days must be dark and dreary. 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Two children-specific, well-known Longfellow poems-turned-picturebooks are: 

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

illustrated by Jeffrey Thompson

9780792265580, $7.95, National Geographic Society (Random House)

and 

Hiawatha

illustrated by Susan Jeffers

9780140558821, $7.99, Penguin   

To see this on my personal blog, go here. 

Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen

Thank you to Google for reminding me that today is the 205th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen. Google has a five-image series of Andersen's  Thumbelina surrounding their logo today.
Andersen was a Danish writer and paper-cut artist who not only recorded tales from the oral storytelling tradition (in the style of the Brothers Grimm), but who also wrote his own creations. His fairy tales were published in Europe beginning in the 1830s, but it wasn't until the 1860s that Americans first got a look at them (in an American English edition - maybe they'd seen them before elsewhere, people did travel back then, you know).

A man named Horace E. Scudder worked for an early version of the publishing house we now know as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, known then as Hurd & Houghton. At that time in children's publishing, children's magazines were becoming a big deal, with many publishers vying for the position of top-circulating, best-illustrated, most-engaging-stories-by-most-famous-authors children's magazine producer. The Riverside Magazine for Young People was first published by Hurd & Houghton in December 1866. Scudder had a close relationship with Andersen and was able to not only publish 17 of Andersen's fairy tales in The Riverside Magazine beginning in 1868, but Scudder also negotiated on behalf of Hurd & Houghton to publish the only authorized American edition of Andersen's stories (thank you to Leonard Marcus's Minders of Make-Believe for this information). Scudder was constantly encouraging Andersen to make the trip across the pond and visit the States, but sadly that never happened.

Andersen's tales have been made into movies - cartoon and live-action, plays, and ballets. They also continue to be collected in anthologies and illustrated as individual stories. Just last month in March 2010, Chronicle Books published a version of Thumbelina, illustrated by Sylvia Long (9780811855228, $17.99). One of my favorite versions of this story was illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger, published under the title Thumbeline (9780735822368, $6.95, NorthSouth). There is even a graphic novel version (9781434217417, $4.95, Capstone Press), and a re-imagined full-length middle grade novel with silhouette illustrations by Barbara Ensor (9780375839603, $12.99, Random House).

Of the hundreds of anthologies of Andersen's work, Lisbeth Zwerger has illustrated a beautiful edition in her signature dreamy watercolor style (9780698400351, $21.99, Penguin). W.W. Norton (a publishing house) has released an annotated collected works (9780393060812, $35), while Calla Editions, an imprint of Dover Publications, has published an immense, bound in a cloth binding with gold embossed lettering, gift edition (9781606600009, $40). Lastly, don't miss a collection of his paper cuttings - artwork that looks like reverse silhouettes, compiled by Beth Wagner Brust for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (9780618311095, $9.95).

However you prefer your Andersen, illustrated or performed, take some time today or this weekend to read a few of his treasured tales. I'd start with The Little Mermaid (if you're reading with older children or for yourself). This isn't a washed-out Disney version. It's the real classic. As it should be.

 - Rebecca

Click here to see this post on my personal blog.

Book Recommendations for 3rd & 4th Grade Boys

A teacher friend of mine prompted this blog post. Actually, she asked me for this list over a year ago, and she knows how very, truly sorry I am that it's taken me this long to get it for her. Once I had done so, though, I thought I might share it with the world.

The following list is a brief overview of some books that are currently in-print that I think would suit the tastes of boys who are in 3rd or 4th grade, or who are reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level. Having never been a 3rd or 4th grade boy, my opinion comes from having a father, an older brother, and many boy customers, all of whom I observe and talk with about books. The general trend runs toward sports, "funny" books, and action/adventure. I'm also throwing some part-graphic novel titles on here, just for fun.

The original series I recommended at the teacher's request was the Dan Gutman series, Baseball Card Adventures (HarperCollins). These stories featured a boy who upon touching a baseball card, would be transported back in time to meet, say, Mickey Mantle or Shoeless Joe.

Continuing on the sports theme, I would also recommend a series by Loren Long and Phil Bildner, originally known as Barnstormers when it was a hardcover-only series, now known as Sluggers in hardcover/paperback (Simon & Schuster). This has a similar feel to the Dan Gutman series, in that it combines baseball and magic, but aren't high-fantasy (no goblins, trolls, etc.). There are six in the series so far. My favorite aspect of this series is that a lot of baseball terminology and slang are used right in the prose, and then defined in the margins of the page. You get to read a great baseball adventure story and learn baseball vocab - what could be better than that?

One last sports series, that's not baseball specific is the Comeback Kids series by Mike Lupica (Penguin). Each book features a boy playing a different sport; so, for instance, one plays basketball, one football, one baseball, etc.

On to non-sports recommendations:

Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder by Jo Nesbo, illustrated by Mike Lowery (9781416979722, $14.99, Simon & Schuster). The word "fart" is in the title. Need I say more?

The Indian in the Cupboard (series) by Lynne Reid Banks (Random House). An oldie but a goodie, though being sensitive to the portrayal of Native Americans in literature, I have to say this series is typically lacking in its cultural sensitivity and accurate tribal-specific information. That said, I read this series as a kid and it's what, in part, influenced me in becoming a Native American studies major in college. So, you never know.

Never underestimate the power of the Choose Your Own Adventure novel, mostly written by R.A. Montgomery, though other writers fill in the series (Chooseco). These don't need to be read in order. They have started publishing some CYOAs at the beginning chapter book level for 1st and 2nd graders, too.

The Jon Scieszka recommendation section of this post:

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka (9780670011384, $12.99, Penguin). The subtitle is Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka. These tales feature the outlandish (mostly true) events that occur when you grow up as one of six brothers. Pictures of Jon Scieszka and his family are sprinkled throughout the book. Some parents have been sensitive to the cover - it was designed specifically that way to reflect the covers of comic books that Scieszka read as a child that age, not as a political statement of today.

Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things...
(...that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures form the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish, so maybe you could help us out)
by Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, etc. (9780385737470, $12.99, Random House). Besides winning best title of the decade, this book is a great introduction to some fantastic authors. Basically these are all short stories, a few pages long, mostly sci-fi or fantasy-related. A good introduction to this genre and these writers for kids at the Middle Grade reading level.

A similar book for those reading at the higher end of Middle Grade, say 10-14 years old, try Guys Write for Guys Read, edited by Jon Scieszka (9780670011445, $11.99, Penguin). This is the same type of book where all the stories are a few pages long, only not only sci-fi/fantasy-based tales. In this compilation, all the contributing writers are guys, writing for a guy audience.

Part graphic novel, part regular novel recommendations:

Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom & Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000 (series starring Frankie Pickle) by Eric Wight (Simon & Schuster). This series is a little easier reading level for those reluctant readers, more of a 2nd to 3rd grade level. The "every day" scenes are in prose; it's when Frankie's imagination takes over that the graphic novel element comes to life.

Dragonbreath (series) by Ursula Vernon (Penguin). A relatively new series starring a little dragon as the main character, but in the role of a boy; also featuring a foreign exchange student (a salamander) and ninja frogs.

The Fog Mound (trilogy) by Susan Schade and Jon Buller (Simon & Schuster). Recommended by my Simon & Schuster book rep, this series is about a chipmunk named Thelonious who is given the chance to find out if the old stories are true - if people rather than animals once ruled the Earth, and if they did, what happened to the humans?

Now that you've heard my two cents, does the peanut gallery have any favorites they'd like to add?

-Rebecca

She said, He said: Novels with multiple narrators

A sales rep friend posed this question online today:

I have a writer friend who is looking for YA (or adult) novels that are told in alternating voices. She wants examples where each character has a chapter and they go back and forth between points of view. It’s a bonus if the characters live in different time periods.

The varied responses from the people who answered her, and the fact that I'm working on a YA novel told from various view points, made me reflect on that topic.

A co-worker once lamented about dual-narrator novels, saying something to the effect of, "Unless it's written really really well, it's a cop-out" (I'm paraphrasing greatly here). After I heard her reasoning, I admit I judged dual-narrator novels more harshly, despite writing one of my own.

The way I defend my own writing is that I didn't want to tell the entire novel from a third-person omniscient narrator POV, and both main characters are, ya know, main characters with two distinct voices, so...mine works (I hope).

But what really makes a novel work with multiple voices and in which cases is it unnecessary to the plot? A lot of novels have more than one main character, or really important secondary characters; why should they not all have their own voice? Often scenes are told from the POV of a character other than the main character, but almost never in first person. It is the omniscient narrator that allows the reader to gaze through the eyes of a secondary character, and it abundantly clear that the POV of the primary protagonist is the central focus.

Of course, I'm also confusing this subject by talking about POV (point-of-view), voices, and narrators, and all that doesn't include various storytelling formats such as diary entries, letters, phone conversation transcripts, and the recently more common emails and text messages. Where do all of these fit into the subject of multiple narrators?

While I don't have concrete answers to the questions I've posed, here are some books to hold up as examples for things I think they do particularly well.

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger (9780142413432, $8.99, Penguin) is my go-to favorite for multiple narrator/multiple format storytelling. This is a YA novel about three contemporary teenagers. The novel exhibits three different main character points-of-view, with plenty of secondary characters, texts, emails, IMs, diary entries, and expository scenes.

Another favorite contemporary YA novel that switches not only narrators, but also time periods, is Printz Award-winning Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (9780061431852, $8.99, Harper). Warning: It makes me sob (good tears) every time I read it; it's that good.

A new, not-yet-released YA novel told by dual narrators is Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (9780525421580, $17.99, Penguin, Pub. Date: April 2010). Interestingly, the two different view points are written by two different authors.

My favorite adult novel, though sadly out-of-print, is Letters from an Age of Reason by Nora Hague (9780060959852, Harper). Told in alternating sections, letters and journal entries chronicle the relationship between a white American living in England during the Civil War years, and the high-yellow former slave from New Orleans she falls in love with.

Also told in letters, is a non-fiction book, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (9780140143508, $13, Penguin), which covers the decades of correspondence between Helene, the American author, and the people from the bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road. Also adult.

Similar to 84... is the best-seller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (9780385341004, $14, Random House). Also about an American author corresponding with British people, this takes place right after WWII, and delicately showcases the friendships and budding romance. Also adult.

Nora Roberts, also writing as J.D. Robb, often writes scenes from a secondary character's point of view, though it is always clear who the main character is. Her more romantic novels are almost always told primarily through the woman's point of view, but a great strength of her novels are the scenes that are seen through the man's eyes. In her J.D. Robb ...In Death mysteries, not only does the reader see Eve Dallas's and her husband Roarke's POV, but scenes from various victims' POV are often presented as well.

For another great mystery, read Darling Jim by Christian Moerk (9780805092080, $15, Henry Hold (MPS)), told from the POVs of a postman, a dead woman and her diary, and a live woman and her diary, among others.

I've noticed YA fantasy novels have a propensity for being told with dual narrators. Here is a quick list of books I've read that showcase dual or multiple narrators that are currently on the store's shelves:

Hearts at Stake (9780802720740, $9.99, Walker & Company (Bloomsbury, MPS)) and Blood Feud (9780802720962, $9.99, Walker & Company (Bloomsbury, MPS)) by Alyxandra Harvey

Incarceron (9780803733961, $17.99, Penguin) by Catherine Fisher

Leviathan (9781416971733, $19.99, Simon) by Scott Westerfeld

Sorcery & Cecelia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (9780152053000, $6.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

Witch & Wizard (9780316036245, $17.99, Little, Brown & Co.) by James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet

Do you have any examples of novels of this ilk you'd like to share?

-Rebecca

Books and Tattoos

Penguin Publishers has found a way to combine two of my favorite topics - books and tattoos - into one magical moment. Okay, actually six magical moments.

Penguin has created a new line of books known as Penguin Ink. Already published adult novels are getting a face lift with new cover designs created by tattoo artists. Paul Buckley is the design director for this new line.

The first six novels are being re-released at the end of June. They are:

Bridget Jones's Diary
by Helen Fielding, cover design by Tara McPherson
Paperback: 9780143117131, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010

Money: A Suicide Note
by Marin Amis, cover design by Bert Krak
Paperback: 9780143116950, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010

From Russia With Love
by Ian Fleming, cover design by Chris Garver
Paperback: 9780143116943, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010



The Broom of the System
by David Foster Wallace, cover design by Duke Riley
Paperback: 9780143116936, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010


Waiting for the Barbarians
by J.M. Coetzee, cover design by Chris Conn
Paperback: 9780143116929, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010


The Bone People
by Keri Hulme, cover design by Pepa Heller
Paperback: 9780143116455, $15, Penguin, Pub. Date: June 2010

Read more about this here.

And in case you missed it in an earlier post, some adult Penguin Classics have been redone to have intricate typography covers in shades of black, white, and red - the red is to spark AIDS awareness, the cause behind the repackaging. Read more about the Penguin Classics here.

This post can also be read on my personal blog here.

-Rebecca