PAULA WHYMAN
curiouswriter

In which we wonder about writing, food, music,  
& random curious events. 

In my son's school, there's a period in the schedule that's called "DEAR" time. DEAR is the acronym for "Drop Everything and Read." Each child chooses a book and reads for an uninterrupted block of time (which is never long enough, according to the young readers in my house).

I try to build DEAR time into my own daily schedule, even if it comes after 11pm. And I agree, whenever it is, it's never enough. The Curious Stack on my night stand is becoming rather precarious. As is the one by my recliner. And the one in the kitchen. And the one by the exercise bike... You get the picture.

But I'm more determined than ever to get my reading time in, because this is such an exciting season for new fiction. If you have some DEAR time of your own, whether it's at 11pm or during your Spring Break vacation, here are four great new novels that will make you want to drop everything and find a comfortable chair. These books are dramatically different from each other, yet they have two important things in common: All have garnered critical praise from many quarters, and all four talented authors hail from right here in the Washington, DC, area.


THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake, a Politics & Prose Bookstore bestseller. Boston Globe calls it a "book to get lost in." Praised by novelist Kathryn Stockett.

Iris James is the postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts a small town at the end of Cape Cod. She firmly believes her job is to deliver and keep people's secrets, to pass along the news of love and sorrow that letters carry. Faithfully she stamps and sends the letters between people such as the newlyweds Emma and Will Fitch, who has gone to London to help out during the Blitz. But one day she slips a letter into her pocket, and leaves it there.

Meanwhile, seemingly fearless radio gal, Frankie Bard is reporting the Blitz from London, her dispatches crinkling across the Atlantic, imploring listeners to pay attention. Then in the last desperate days of the summer of 1941, she rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on what is happening to the refugees there.

Alternating between an America on the eve of entering into World War II, still safe and snug in its inability to grasp the danger at hand, an a Europe being torn apart by war, the two stories collide in a letter, bringing the war finally home to Franklin.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

THE OPPOSITE OF ME by Sarah Pekkanen, a Redbook Magazine March pick, praised by novelist Jennifer Weiner. Booklist calls it "funny and poignant."

Twenty-nine year old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her devastatingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named Creative Vice President of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of 80 plus-hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But during the course of one devastating night, Lindsey’s carefully-constructed life implodes.

Humiliated and desperate, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her prince charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin, while she furtively tries to put her career back together. But things get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

VINTAGE VERONICA by Erica Perl, for young adult readers (and the young-at-heart!). Booklist calls Perl "masterful" and the story "earthy and real."

Veronica Walsh is 15, fashion-minded, fat, and friendless. Her summer job in the Consignment Corner section (Employees Only!) of a vintage clothing store is a dream come true. There Veronica can spend her days separating the one-of-a-kind gem garments from the Dollar-a-Pound duds, without having to deal with people. But when two outrageous yet charismatic salesgirls befriend her and urge her to spy on and follow the mysterious and awkward stock boy Veronica has nicknamed the Nail, Veronica’s summer takes a turn for the weird. Suddenly, what began as a prank turns into something else entirely. Which means Veronica may have to come out of hiding and follow something even riskier for the first time: her heart.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson, a Politics & Prose bookstore bestseller and Indiebound March Pick-of-the-Month. The Washington Post praises the book's "crisp wit and gentle insight."

When Major Pettigrew, a retired British army major in a small English village, embarks on an unexpected friendship with the widowed Mrs. Ali, who runs the local shop, trouble erupts to disturb the bucolic serenity of the village and of the Major’s carefully regimented life.

As the Major and Mrs. Ali discover just how much they have in common, including an educated background and a shared love of books, they must struggle to understand what it means to belong and how far the obligations of family and tradition can be set aside for personal freedom. Meanwhile, the village itself, lost in its petty prejudices and traditions, may not see its own destruction coming.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

Now, no more excuses: Flop down on that beanbag chair, Drop Everything, and Read! (And, by the way, while you're down there on the bean bag chair, could you please pick up those hard bits of popcorn that are ground into the carpet from last time? Thanks...)

Lately, I've been asking myself, what good is it having a blog if you don't use it to shamelessly promote the work of your friends and family members?

I'm lucky in that my friends and relatives who do creative work are very talented and their work is of such high quality that I would read (or look at or listen to) it, even if I didn't know them personally.

Sure, fix me with that skeptic's smirk, but I don't think I've steered anyone wrong yet.

So, when I announce this new volume, I'm not telling you about it only because it was written by a family member. I'm telling you about it because I know it's a good book. It's already garnered praise here and across the pond, as we say. You don't have to take my word for it.

March 12 is the official U.S. launch date for The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800... by Susan E. Whyman. Yes, there's a similarity in last names. You might say the last names are identical. That's because Dr. Whyman is my mother-in-law. And I'm not doing this for brownie points, not at all! She really doesn't need my help.

According to a History Today review by James Daybell, The Pen and the People is "[an] impressive new book...breaks significant new ground [by] arguing for the 18th century as the period that witnessed the emergence of a popular culture of letter-writing. [It] will undoubtedly have considerable impact on the field while the fascinating case studies will appeal to the more general reader."

The author spent more than 10 years poring over original documents, unearthing new treasure troves of letters that other historians were convinced did not even exist. As a result, The Pen and the People explores original, cutting edge ideas on the history of writing, reading and the novel. There are actual discussions, found in these previously unknown letters, of marriage, poverty, poetry, and the emotional lives of servants.



The book interests me as an illumination of a newly uncovered piece of history, but also because letter-writing is a disappearing art form. Please don't suggest emails are the new letters. Emails are not letters. They're built for speed and brevity, full of abbreviations, typos, and ill-thought-out expressions. They're meant to be disposable, more often than not, and they only hang around when they're meant to embarrass CEOs and government officials.

When something is handwritten, the words seem much more carefully chosen. The labor of writing by hand makes the letter a project in itself. How many of you had a pen-pal when you were a kid? Do you remember the eager anticipation, waiting to get a letter back? No more; everything happens instantly. There is no time spent in the pleasurable agony of waiting for some special communique. What about love letters? You know you saved them. Somehow, a flip email punctuated with emoticons just ain't the same.

Think how the sense of urgency of so many of our communications would be redefined if we had to write them by hand and then wait for a response for more than the minutes it takes to get a return email? Believe me, I wouldn't want to return to those days completely, but on the other hand, I can't remember the last time someone wrote me an actual letter on actual paper. I'm not a luddite (here I am, blogging---), but I miss that.

In Susan Whyman's book, you can see some of what we've lost. Ordinary people began to speak their minds, and, 300-plus years later, their handwritten words remain. What's the message there?

The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800 by Susan E. Whyman is the author's third book. It can be ordered from Amazon or directly from Oxford University Press.

Kermit Moyer, author of The Chester Chronicles, which I discussed here, has interesting things to say about the intersection between fiction and autobiography. After I heard his quote in a Writerscast interview, which I mentioned here, I knew he had only scratched the surface of his thoughts on the matter. Here, then, more on the subject from Kermit Moyer (and enough said by me).

I believe that the best way to tell the truth about yourself and your experience is to lie—that is, to write fiction rather than a memoir. Having just published an autobiographical novel called The Chester Chronicles, I can tell you that, first of all, it’s simply easier to tell uncomfortable truths about yourself when you seem to be talking about someone else. As the poet Richard Hugo has said,

The poem is always in your home town, but you have a better chance of finding it in another. . . . Though you’ve never seen it before, it must be a town you’ve lived in all your life. . . . [Here] it is easy to turn the gas station attendant into a drunk. Back home it would have been difficult because he had a drinking problem. (The Triggering Town)

But there’s another, even more crucial way that fiction is necessary if we’re going to tell the truth about our lives. If my recounting of my experience is to be as detailed and as richly textured as my experience has been, I have no choice but to use my imagination as much as, or more than, my memory. Because it’s simply impossible to do justice to life’s intricate and filigreed surfaces, its detailed particularities and varied textures, without resorting to imaginative invention.

And who can do without dialogue? But if dialogue occurs in a memoir, it tends to be suspect, to partake of the imagined rather than the remembered, since we can’t usually recall whole past conversations verbatim. So the inclusion of dialogue tends to compromise the memoirist’s primary obligation, which is to be true to the actual facts of the author’s life. The fiction writer’s primary obligation, on the other hand, is to be true to feeling rather than to facts. As E. L. Doctorow says:

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it’s raining, but the feel of being rained on.

Finally, I think the special power of fiction has something to do not only with the way it can render a felt sense of life in all its intricacy but also the way it can render life’s moment-by-moment spontaneity and its constant openness to surprise. I may start with the feeling of a remembered situation, but to be true to my experience, I have to let things develop on the page as they will, just as they do in life. Sometimes they take a course I’m familiar with; sometimes—in fact, more often than not—they don’t. Unlike the memoirist, I am free to allow my narrative’s course to be open to the living moment and to unfold as organically as life itself does rather than being predetermined by the facts of my life.

Which is also why I opted to use the present tense for The Chester Chronicles, even though the point of view is retrospective: the present tense indicates that the recounted experience is happening again right now in the memory and imagination of the narrator, and of the reader. And if the reader is living through it imaginatively along with the narrator, the effect is to make readers feel like the story has happened to them too, that it is actually part of their own experience. And when that happens . . . well, that's it, isn't it? That's what we're aiming for.

Kermit Moyer grew up an Army brat in the 1950s. He got his BA, his MA, and his PhD in English from Northwestern University and in 1970 joined the faculty of American University in Washington, DC, where he taught literature and creative writing for 37 years. His short fiction has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, and The Hudson Review, and he is the author of Tumbling, a collection of stories published by the University of Illinois Press. He lives with his wife Amy and their dog Zora on Cape Cod.

This morning, I awoke to an NPR broadcast about the Supreme Court case pitting a Chicago gun owner against the city of Chicago [McDonald v. Chicago]. Opening arguments will be heard today. At stake is the ability of states to regulate gun ownership independently. This case came about because the Court struck down the DC gun law prohibiting handgun ownership. I was pretty annoyed about that Court decision, and I commented at the time on what I thought was then-candidate Barack Obama's wimpy response.

I'm not interested in making pro/con arguments in this space. As a writer, what interests me here is the preponderance of hyperbole on both sides. I heard more logical, thoughtful arguments when I participated in a debate about nuclear power in Ms. Jaworski's English class back in 10th grade.

Clearly, the best logic does not make the best sound bite.

Witness:

Representing Chicago, lawyer Jim Feldman: "If there were a free-floating right of self-defense, then you would have the right to a machine gun, or a bazooka, or who knows what else."

Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of the National Rifle Association: No reasonable person is going to think the 2nd amendment entitles them to a bazooka. But, "A machine gun is a more difficult question."

My kids: Forget the Wii, we want a bazooka! We want a bazooka NOW!

Me: Now, kids, you know that a machine gun is the best we can do.

Alan Gura, the lawyer for Otis McDonald, who's brought the case: The right to keep guns in the home for protecting yourself is like being allowed to keep contraceptives to protect yourself.

Me: Hey, in a pinch, this diaphragm makes a handy slingshot!

Gura again: We have freedom to choose our religion in this country; we should also have freedom to choose our weapons.

Me: I pick Buddhism and nunchucks.

Otis McDonald, when told he can legally have a shotgun in his home, but not a handgun: "Why should I have to be inconvenienced because of laws that are here to protect me?"

Me: Yeah! The government needs to stop protecting us, dammit! This is America--Pioneer spirit! Renew my driver's license? Why should I? I didn't forget how to drive. And wearing a seatbelt is so inconvenient. If I don't want to be protected in a crash, it's no one's business but my own. And while we're at it, getting my kid to school every day, that's really a pain. And you know what, this whole pay-your-taxes in order to get state services thing? That's gotta go.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley: "So why is it you can't even go see a congressman with a gun? Why can't you carry a gun into a federal building?"

Me: Thank you for clearing that up. I was wondering why I kept getting wanded last time I was in a government building. I told them I left the bazooka in the garage, but, strangely, that only made them more intent.

Me: I knew I should've gone for the brass knuckles.

Obviously, the players in this case did not have Ms. Jaworski for 10th grade English, because they would all FAIL. Unlike my clever opponents in the debate who went on to CalTech and MIT and illustrious careers in science, and me, who went on to...to...

Dear Officer K--,

I am also the kind of person who gets annoyed when people are late. Is their time more important than mine? If we say 7pm for dinner, I will expect guests to arrive by 7:15. If you show up at 7:45, I may well view that as inconsiderate. So please know, Officer K--, I wish we were all prompt. The world would be a more thoughtful place.

However, if I invite you to dinner for 7pm, and you show up at 7pm on the nose, well, that's a little freaky. I might start to think that you actually arrived earlier, and that you were waiting outside my house for, say, 30 minutes, looking at your watch every few minutes, just to make sure. Maybe you were merely checking out the landscaping. Gazing in the windows to see if we'd done any repainting in the living room. Checking our mailbox. Taking notes. Which reminds me, the envelope containing my phone bill was torn at the corner. I'm sure you had nothing to do with that, though. But Officer K--, the singing, that was a bit much. Do you know what I mean? It's very flattering, don't get me wrong, and I have no critical skills in this area, and I always enjoyed "Some Enchanted Evening," I just never heard a rendition quite like yours, with the bullhorn, and the standard-issue revolver. So, show up early, that's fine. But please, no singing, and no shooting into the air. We have plenty of starlings around so that's really not what's bothering me about it. I think the cat made off with the carcass anyway. I never did find it. But, please understand, when you show up in the morning and kneel behind the forsythia with your binoculars, it weirds out the neighbors.

Thank you!

I've been called for jury duty. They say they expect me to be unbiased. Hahahaha!

Oh, wait; I think they were serious....

Anyway, this has me thinking. The courtroom is a place full of stories. Everyone there presents his own version of the truth. The "winner" can be the one who tells the best story, the story that sounds the most like the truth to the most people.

Does a fiction writer make a good juror? Or will we just "vote" for the best story? Will I be distracted by story flaws, the primary one in this situation, perhaps, being whether I believe this character would behave a particular way in the given situation?

The last time I was called for jury duty, I was sent to a courtroom for a criminal trial, but I was dismissed during voir dire. It was the trial of a young man who was accused of robbing a church, selling drugs, and possessing firearms. He looked, in my opinion, very comfortable in the courtroom, as if he'd been there many, many times before. This was of course not information that was shared with us. Regardless, I was sure he was guilty before anyone said a word. Oddly enough, it was the prosecutor who dismissed me.

But this is what writers do, isn't it? I see someone on the bus, and I make up a story in my head about who she is, where she's going, and why. I guess what she does for a living and what she was like in high school. I guess whether she's married and, if so, how it's going. Am I ever right about any of these speculations? I'll probably never know. But I bet I can write a convincing character sketch. Is there a situation in which I won't have an opinion? Unlikely. Does that make me biased, in the legal sense? I suppose that depends on whether I'm willing to change my mind.

Curious Spouse may have something to say about that...

In an interview with David Wilk on WritersCast.com, Kermit Moyer discusses his new novel, The Chester Chronicles, which I also talked about here. Wilk points out that the linked stories in Moyer's book are autobiographical, and Moyer explains why he chose not to simply write a memoir:

"I decided the best way to tell the truth about myself was to write fiction." That way, says Moyer, he can truly express an emotion that's real, even if the events built around it are made up.

Wilk adds that it's less important for the reader to know which parts of the story are fiction and which are real than it is for him or her to feel a connection with the character. Wilk says he felt this connection with the narrator of The Chester Chronicles, and he compares the book to A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

You can listen to the complete interview here.

1. We were both born in February! Happy Birthday, Mr. Ford!

2. We are both writers! (Bet you knew that was coming...)

3. Richard Ford is one of my favorite writers. (I'm sure he is one of his favorite writers, too. Why not?)

4. We both write novels. Richard Ford's novels have been published!

5. Some of Richard Ford's books take place in New Jersey. I have been to New Jersey many times. (See how these commonalities start to pile up?)

6. We both used the expression "gorked off" in a book to indicate someone dying. Richard Ford may have used it first.

7. Richard Ford keeps his manuscripts in the freezer. I keep pizza in the freezer. We both use our freezers!

8. We both attended that gala award reading last spring! We both had a few drinks, got our courage up, and had a nice conversation. (Maybe that was just me with the drinks. And the courage.)

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Mr. Ford, from a big fan.
Hope you have a great day, because before you know it, the good times are gone like a fart in a skillet.

Listen to the podcast of my NPR commentary on Independence Day, and two other books about desperate suburban men. Angst Lurks Behind the Lawn Mower was broadcast on All Things Considered.

The Authors Guild has developed a new way for authors to track what Amazon is doing to their book's page:

The Authors Guild is pleased to announce the launch of WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com, which is now live in fully-functional beta form. Who Moved My Buy Button? allows authors to keep track of whether Amazon has removed the "buy buttons" from any of their books.

Simply register the ISBNs of any books you'd like monitored, and our web tool will check daily to make sure your buy buttons are safe and sound. If there's a problem, we'll e-mail you an alert.

Although we've launched WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com in response to Amazon's wholesale removal of buy buttons from Macmillan titles, we believe Amazon should be monitored for years to come. Amazon's developed quite a fondness for employing this draconian tactic (there's a chronology at the website); it's only grown bolder with its growing market clout.

Vigilance is called for: sounding off is our best collective defense. Register your ISBNs today -- it's free and open to all authors, Guild members and not. (Though we'd prefer you join.)

Look here for more information and a screen shot.

And, if I may put in an additional word for the Authors Guild, they help make this here website possible, and I'm pretty happy about that.

See my guest post on novelist Susan Coll's blog, Alternate Sides: Adventures Along the Northeast Corridor, if you'd like to hear about my embarrassing experience on the USAir shuttle: The Apple Juice Fiasco.

And, while you're at it, read Susan's clever and funny posts about parking-- in particular, parking after a snowstorm in DC.

Susan Coll is the author of four very funny novels, including Acceptance, which was made into a film for Lifetime, and the forthcoming Beach Week. She is the fiction editor of Bethesda Magazine.