The authors’ original words do their work more justice than any book review I write, and when grouped together, the quotes become atmospheric of the state they are set in. I hope you enjoy this addition of a “Favorite Quotes” series to my Andrea Reads America coverage.
From The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
“All afternoon the clouds remained high and thin, the wind ripped dead leaves from the tree branches, and daylight guttered like a candle. Mabel thought of the terrible cold that would trap her alone in the cabin, and her breathing turned shallow and rapid.”
“November was here, and it frightened her because she knew what it brought – cold upon the valley like a coming death.”
“The December days had a certain luminosity and sparkle, like frost on bare branches, alight in the morning just before it melts.”
“Dawn broke silver over the snowdrifts and spruce…
I avoided posting favorite quotes from each state’s literature on my Butterfly Mind blog, but I will be posting them on the Andrea Reads America site. Plus I just wanted to see how the reblog button works. Enjoy!
When I covered my around-the-US reading project on my Butterfly Mind blog, I was reluctant to publish posts of favorite quotes. I thought, “Those aren’t my words – they don’t fit here.” Now that Andrea Reads America has its own site, I am breaking that silence. The authors’ original words do their work more justice than any book review I write, and when grouped together, the quotes become atmospheric of the state they are set in. I hope you enjoy this new addition to my Andrea Reads America coverage.
From Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Scout:
“Pass the damn ham please.”
“North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background.”
“The class was wriggling like a bucketful of catawba worms.”
“Looks like if Mr. Arthur was hankerin’ after heaven he’d come out on the porch at least.”
Henry Dumas: Arkansas-born poet and short story author
Arkansas was kicking my butt, y’all. It began well, with me devouring Charles Portis’s True Grit in two days, but when I finished the book, I realized a good half of it took place in the Oklahoma territory. Should I count it for Arkansas on my Andrea Reads America tour? (Andrea Reads America = three books set in each state, with works by men, women, and authors of color)
On top of the True Grit dilemma, Arkansas was the state that spawned my Where are the ethnic authors? post. After reaching out to faculty in the University of Arkansas English department, I still didn’t have any works of fiction set in the state of Arkansas and written by Arkansas authors of color. I considered relaxing my fiction rule to read the professor-recommended nonfiction titles; I considered reading an Arkansas-set novel written by a novelist who has lived her whole life in New York.
I took a break from Andrea Reads America to read The Goldfinch while I ruminated on what to do about the Arkansas dilemma(s).
When I finished The Goldfinch, I was doped on excellence. I drifted through life in that post-amazing-novel daze where you haven’t yet blinked back into reality; I knew whatever followed was going to suffer, like those poor ice skaters who crash when they follow a gold-medal performance.
And what followed was Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I’ve read the book before, and I know it is good, but it did not satisfy me this time. I wanted fiction. I wanted landscape. Caged Bird is nonfiction; it is soulscape. I thought, well, maybe I need something funny, something totally different from the literariness of The Goldfinch; maybe I need something light, something totally different from the seriousness of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
I found a murder mystery series set in Arkansas and written by Arkansas author Joan Hess (she satisfies my woman author criterion!), and I drove to our library to pick up one of the titles in the series, Misery Loves Maggody. I tried to like it, I really did. But the characters were caricatures – exaggerated and expected – and the settings, dialogue, and scenes were cliché after cliché after cliché. The murder didn’t even happen until more than 100 pages in. But more disappointing than any of that was that since I did not detect authenticity in the characters, I did not trust the setting either; the setting could have been a silly spoof of any Southern town – I didn’t get a feel for Arkansas from it.
In other words, Misery Loves Maggody didn’t work for me either.
I was a teensy bit frustrated at this point. Just a tinch. I still needed a non-Caucasian author, and I still needed a woman. One of the Arkansas professors suggested Janis Kearney, the Presidential Diarist for Bill Clinton. She is an African-American writer from Arkansas who wrote a biography of Daisy Bates, an Arkansas civil rights activist. She also wrote a memoir, Cotton Field of Dreams. Awesome, right? Woman and not white. Works set in Arkansas. Problems solved, right?
Neither were available at our county or University libraries. And as I’ve mentioned before, despite being an avid reader, I rarely buy books.
On the drive home after yet another trip to our county library, where I discussed the option of an interlibrary loan of Cotton Field of Dreams with the librarian ($3 fee, could be a few weeks before it shows up, maybe I should just order it), it occurred to me: why don’t I run a search for short stories? Surely there’s at least ONE short story out there by an ethnic author. That’s all I need. Just one.
So I searched.
I searched, and I found.
Henry Dumas. Born 1934 in Sweet Home, Arkansas. Called “an absolute genius” by Toni Morrison. Wrote poetry and – get this – short stories. Fiction! And? And! When I searched the University catalogue, his short story collection, Ark of Bones, with – praise the Lord – stories set in Arkansas, pinged “Available, 3rd Floor, Newman Library.”
The next day, after a trip to the 3rd Floor, Newman Library, I plopped down on our couch with Ark of Bones, and I nearly cried for joy. The stories are alive, and they are different from anything I’ve read in a very, very long time. If ever. They are dark and smoky, masculine and earthy, filled with mojo and magic; they read as if they come from a long line of souls buried deep in the earth. I imagine Henry Dumas was an intense man; he certainly had a reverence for the dignity of his race.
Most importantly, in what is surely the crowning accomplishment in his writing career, he rescued me from a post-Goldfinch spiral and an anti-Arkansas frustration. I am grateful to him for that. And I am grateful to the works that didn’t work: I would not have found Henry Dumas without them.
I decided to keep True Grit for Arkansas. It’s too great a book to leave out.
I am reading America: 3 books from each state in the US with the following authorships represented – women, men, and non-Caucasian writers. To follow along, please visit me at andreareadsamerica.com.
Holy cow, y’all. I’ve made it to California (in my reading project). After STRUGGLING to find suitable Arkansas-set novels written by Arkansas authors (it was a STRUGGLE. more on that in a future post.), I finally found three titles, and I finished reading my third last night. I woke this morning, ready to move on, ready to start my search for California-set novels written by California-based authors, and I am overwhelmed by the possibilities. Hollywood. San Francisco. California desert. Redwood forest.
Actually that last one, the redwood forest, is a setting I’d love to read, but I haven’t come across a title set there. Any ideas?
Anyway, I’ve got so many options I’m not sure what to do with myself. For the Asian-immigration experience alone I’m seeing four titles that all sound exciting (The Gangster We Are All Looking For, The Buddha in the Attic, Shanghai Girls, and of course, The Joy Luck Club). There’s an Indian-American title I want to read because I loved the movie (The Mistress of Spices). There’s a coming-of-age novel that I’ve already read and I’ve been looking for an excuse to reread (The Language of Flowers). There are recommendations from you (Ramona, Parable of the Talents), and recommendations from The Readers podcast (Tales of the City; A Way of Life, Like Any Other). There are a million light and fun and kitchy California-set titles, Hollywood and Malibu spoofs.
And then, of course, there is Steinbeck. I’m not sure I can read California without reading Steinbeck. I loved East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, and maybe this is my chance to read Cannery Row, you know?
Sigh. I guess this is a good dilemma to have – to be presented with so many options I can choose whatever I want. If within 10 pages I don’t like a book, I’ve got a long list of backup titles and I can feel free to DNF. But where to begin?! Maybe I’ll start with whatever the library has in the format I want, right here, right now. It will be like closing my eyes and pointing, which from where I sit right now, is as good a way as any to pick my first book.
*A fat wave, according to Rippin H2O’s surf lingo, is “An enormous and sweet ride that comes along maybe once a day.” Reading that lingo list, with words like ducknweave (“on the bourbons”), grundle (“A totally ugly dude that thinks he’s really hot”), and party wave (“When more than one person takes a wave”) made me also want to read a California surfing book.
I am reading America: 3 books from each state in the US with the following authorships represented – women, men, and non-Caucasian writers. To follow along, please visit me at andreareadsamerica.com.
I am nervous about maintaining two blogs – I have already received feedback from another blogger that managing two brands can be challenging – but nesting Andrea Reads America in Butterfly Mind made me squirmy. I wanted to organize the project so that it was more navigable, with easy links to resources, maps, and state-by-state literature capsules.
Over the next few weeks I will gradually move the content I have published here over to the new site, along with posts that include favorite quotes from each state’s book selections. I will continue to post updates on Butterfly Mind until I’ve unpacked all the boxes at the new place, and then I will make all project-related entries on Andrea Reads America. If you have been watching Andrea Reads America and would like to continue following, please join me on the new site. I can’t wait to see you over there.
I am reading America: 3 books from each state in the US with the following authorships represented – women, men, and non-Caucasian writers. To follow along, please visit me at andreareadsamerica.com.
credit: author Lydia Kang from The Word is My Oyster
If you are a parent, or have ever been around the parent of a new baby, you may be familiar with the term “growth spurt.” It is usually paired with the words, “I don’t know what’s wrong with Little Johnnie – he must be going through a ____” (growth spurt).
Babies get fussy during growth spurts. None of a parents old tricks work – change the diaper, add a blanket, remove the socks, coo, bounce, rock, swing. Things are changing inside Little Johnnie, things we can’t see, and let’s face it: it’s uncomfortable. Scary. Whatever is going on, it’s unfamiliar, maybe even painful, and Johnnie doesn’t like it one bit.
I think that’s what’s happening to me right now. Through kismet or coincidence (or perhaps because it is a basic, necessary skill), both my writing group and the craft book I’m reading are intensely focused on structure. As in, structure your writing instead of pantsing it, build it a skeleton before dressing it with skin, and your work will stand erect. Structure is the foundation and the frame; without it, building a piece is a tenuous process, like trying to build a house out of shingles, but with nothing to nail them to. You must contort yourself to hold the shingles up while you frantically staple them together.
I have never structured my work before. Ever.
At first, I was ravenous for information and experience, like Little Johnnie at the breast, gorging in preparation to grow. I told my group, I get it now! I get why revision evades me – because I’m moving shingles around without knowing what I’m nailing them to. I told them, I can’t wait to tackle this homework, 9 paragraphs on a concrete, a noun, something you can touch and taste and see:
1. Facts
2. Origins
3. Ancient perceptions
4. Facts
5. Anectdotes
6. Personal story
7. Metafacts
8. Historical story
9. Personal return to subject
Writing into a structure. I thought, look, it’s all laid out! I thought, this will be fun! This will be easy! I will write about turquoise. Turquoise is simple, it’s not fraught with personal drama that I’m afraid to get close to on this first attempt at a new way of writing. Look how great this will work! I will have paragraphs. I can move them around to observe the flow of information. I can experiment. I can play.
Three weeks and ten hours of active writing later, I’ve got not nine paragraphs but four. Four paragraphs and they are B-O-R-I-N-G.
Meanwhile, my Andrea Reads America project confronts me with a problem I’ve never had before: because I am reading deliberately, writing my reactions, and comparing works, and because I am simultaneously studying the craft of writing, I have become a critical reader.
I don’t want to be a critical reader!
I don’t want to be that peppery old snoot who doesn’t like anything except the finest, the top shelf, the Hendrick’s gin only, please. I liked it better when I liked everything. There are so many more opportunities for pleasure that way. Sure my appreciation of a finely-crafted novel is more profound now, transcendent almost, as when we ate at a five star restaurant and the food was so good we didn’t want to profane the experience by talking. Diners around us chattered while they absently forked steak that melted like butter, or sipped tomato soup that wrapped around your tongue like having God in your mouth, and my husband and I thought, they are not giving this food the reverence it deserves. They’re not even paying attention.
But not every meal can be a five star fine dining experience, and not every novelist can achieve sublimity. I used to be able to accept that, but now my tolerance for fiction that doesn’t work for me has plummeted. It’s not fair for me to expect perfection, especially because I appreciate how difficult it is to achieve, and because I fail so miserably at achieving it myself, yet I can’t help now but notice flaws and see where things don’t work in my reading life.
So I’m fussy. I’m uncomfortable. My reading and writing worlds are changing, and it’s painful, and I don’t like it one bit. Can’t I just go back to when it was easy? When I pantsed my writing and I liked everything I read? Can’t someone coo at me and make it all better?
I take comfort from our children, our Little Johnnies who fussed and flailed and suffered and screamed their way through too many growth spurts to count. And on the other side of every one of them, after they suffered their torment, our babies smiled, they laughed, they radiated serenity. They came back to their happy selves again. Only they were bigger. Deeper. Less like babies, more like people. They had grown.
From The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Butterfly Mind 