Summer Re-Reading

 Like most bibliophiles, my recurring complaint is "So many books; so little time." Knowing that I will never read all the books I'd like to read and that authors are going to keep writing more books, I have already accepted the ruling that before giving up on a book, a person should read 100 pages minus one's age. Even though I know books that took time for the pay-off, I still give up on more these days. I will read a book for book club I might not havre chosen for myself, but I will also choose not to read one if, partway in, I find no redeeming value.

The other challenge I face, though, is the books I have loved that I would love to revisit. Sometimes, I have a hard time justifying re-reading when I have books on my own bookshelf that I haven't read yet. I do find ways to justify re-reading, though. When I taught literature regularly, I made sure that--given the option--I selected books to teach that I would enjoy again and again. One that comes to mind is Charles Frasier's Cold Mountain. I have lost count of how many times I have read it, but it would still be a book I would take to a desert island.

This summer, knowing I am going to be teaching one of our campus's new literary inquiry classes, I have had the delightful pleasure of some favorites for the first time in several years. The course, which will be called Southern Storytelling and Song, will include different genres, so I have been tearing through the ones I have selected, and then I've read others by the same or similar authors.

I read Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings in the first years I taught. I remember some details from the story--hers and those of her parents--so clearly. Returning to her story was just as pleasurable as I remembered. I will also include at least a couple of her stories I love: "Why I Live at the P.O." (particularly lovely if one can find a recording of Welty reading the story herself) and "The Worn Path," often anthologized.

I have also returned to some of the Flannery O'Connor short stories I loved teaching in AP English: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "Good Country People," and "Revelation." I never ceased to be surprised when I see myself in some of her "grotesque" characters. Last summer, we visited friends who had retired and moved from Atlanta suburbs to Milledgeville, Georgia. We visited Andalusia, O'Connor's home, where the peacocks have outlived her.

My selections also reflect some of my favorite current authors. I had not read Tony Earley's Jim the Boy since it was new, though I have picked up everything else he has written since. Having just finished Niall Williams' This Is Happiness, I found the parallels between the stories uncanny, both so beautifully told.

I have been a huge fan of Ron Rash's writing since his novel One Foot in Eden won recognition at Charlotte's Novella Festival.  For the class, I am including his short story collection Burning Bright. No writer I know does a better job of creating unforgettable scenes and images in his stories (what poet Cathy Smith Bowers calls the "abiding image"). I know I will also include some of his poetry in the course, which means I get to read those collections again this summer too.

I have noticed that my list of authors weighs heavily toward North Carolina writers. Earley teaches at Vanderbilt now, but hails from Rutherfordton (pronounced locally with just two syllables.) Rash read at the Writers Symposium at Caldwell Community College while I was teaching there and also presented at our state English teachers conference, as did Clyde Edgerton. I am still vacillating between Raney, his first novel, and Walking Across Egypt, another favorite. 

When I re-read a copy of a book I have read (or taught) before, I often find myself turning to the back cover to make note of passages I love, only to find I had marked the same sections before. 

I realize that this re-reading streak also helps me justify keeping books on my shelf long after I finish them. Who knows? I might want to revisit those other books. too.

Summer Re-Reading

Joshilyn Jackson's Southern Voice: Almost Sisters

After painfully making my way through a couple of audiobooks set in the South but read by decidedly unSouthern narrators, what a breath of fresh air to listen to Joshilyn Jackson reading her own novel The Almost Sisters. I've been reading her books since Gods in Alabama, and she always weaves a great story line with quirky but believable characters.

This novel opens with Leia Birch Briggs, a comic book artist and self-proclaimed nerd, discovering that a one-night stand with a man dressed as Batman (or is it The Batman to purists?) at a comic book convention has left her pregnant with a child she decides she will raise on her own.

She delays telling her family, however, finally deciding she'll first tell her beloved grandmother Birchie, who still lives in the small Southern town of her family origin. She gets the news that her grandmother has been keeping a secret, with the help of her best friend Wattie, the daughter of the family's former black maid: she has a form of dementia known as Lewy bodies. (Yes, it's a real illness.) The dementia revealed itself at a church social when Wattie wasn't able to keep Birchie from spilling town secrets, particularly the extramarital shenanigans going on in the choir room.

Meanwhile, Leia learns that her half-sister--always the perfect one--is in the middle of a marital crisis, and Rachel's young teenage daughter witnessed the blow-up. To get her out of the middle of the crisis, Leia takes her along to Birchville.

As she tries to make the hard decisions about moving her grandmother to a safer place, Leia discovers that the secrets Birchie let fly at the Baptist Church were nothing compared to her own secrets she's been keeping--or hiding--in the family home.

Jackson uses the experiences of many of the characters to explore the impact of a father's absence--either by choice, loss, or pure ignorance. Leia's father died when she was too young to remember him; her stepfather was a loving parent, but early on, Rachel prevented Leia from calling him Dad. Rachel's teen daughter connects with two local teen boys whose mother's infidelity was exposed, and Birchie's father issues emerge through the course of the story, as Leia has to make decisions about how much--or if--to tell Batman she is carrying his baby.

Jackson builds a story that is at once a romance, a coming-of-age story, a family saga, and a comedy. No, she doesn't relegate Batman to his early cameo appearance as the story opens--and he is anything but the stereotype readers might expect--unless they know Joshilyn Jackson's fiction, that is. While I know the story would read just as authentically Southern off the pages of the book, hearing it narrated by the author is an audio treat.

Joshilyn Jackson's Southern Voice: Almost Sisters

Southern Literature Challenge

I just saw a post "My Assignment: Pick 12 Southern Writers" from Dannye Romine Powell, poet and long-time columnist for the Charlotte Observer, announcing that she had been asked by a by a local book club to recommend works by Southern writers. She shares her list, which includes some works I've read (such as Eudora Welty's short story "A Worn Path" which came up in a conversation I had today) some works I haven't read by authors I have (Josephine Humphreys, for example), and others with which I was unfamiliar.

She finishes with a mention of a short list of writers she'd omitted--in this particular list at least: William Faulkner, Walker Percy, Pat Conroy.

Anyone knows--Powell knows--such list a highly debatable. Isn't that what makes them fun? I'm going to take a day or two for my own list I would have assigned to the same request, but I'd love to hear yours.

Southern Literature Challenge

Ron Rash: Above the Waterfall

I was introduced to Ron Rash's work first when his novel One Foot in Eden was selected for an award at the Novella Festival that was held for several years in Charlotte. A teaching colleague passed the book along to me, but it took me awhile to get around to reading it then. Once I did, though, I sought his other books and discovered not only novels but short stories and poetry.

I had the opportunity to meet Rash at the North Carolina English Teachers Association fall conference the year he was given the group's Ragan-Rubin award, and then again when he was our featured writer at the Laurette LePrevost Writers Symposium at Caldwell Community College.

Rash's writing struck a chord in my students; many of them recognized some of the conflicts the characters faced--families who weren't so happy that they were going to college to better themselves, the growing plague of meth in this part of the state. When he appeared on campus for the readings, he was warm and generous with his time. He varied his presentations, reading his audiences well. In his spare time between readings, he went back to his room to write.

Ron Rash doesn't write books so he can make appearances. He writes, it seems, because he's a writer. He has a reputation for daily discipline--and the work pays off.  While some writers are pulled away from producing more good writing after they have one successful book, relishing the book signings and readings, Rash manages to stay in control.

His latest novel Above the Waterfall, set in the part of the South near my home, brings to mind his short story "Back of Beyond," which appeared in his collection Burning Bright. While that story focused on a pawn shop owner, the plot of this book is shared by two protagonists: Les, who at fifty-one is about to retire from his job as sheriff, and Becky, a park ranger who bears serious emotional scars from her past.

The shift between narrators showcases Rash's deft use of language. Becky's sections are often poetic; in some chapters, she works on fragments on her own poetry in response to her natural world, while in others she is drawn again and again to Hopkins.

Les is a complex character--a tough guy and an artist, a lawman who accepts bribes from the area pot growers in order to focus on the local meth problem.

Both of the characters deal with guilt and trauma from their past: Becky survived a school shooting, which left her silent for a time; Les feels responsibility for his ex-wife's suicide attempt. What they hold in common is determination not to rush to judgment when an elderly curmudgeon seems the obvious guilty party when a fish kill occurs on the resort property adjoining his land. The attempt to solve the crime drives the plot, even as the novel remains character-centered.

Without sermonizing, Rash sustains an underlying theme of mercy and second chances, set against a backdrop illustrating the far-reaching consequences of the current meth epidemic on individuals, families, and communities.

Turning the last page, I could not resist going back to re-read page one, a sure sign this book will stay with me for a long time.

Ron Rash: Above the Waterfall

Let's Talk About It--or Maybe Not

For as long as I can remember, reading has been an intensely social activity for me. Even when I read alone in my room, I am engaging in conversations in my head with the characters and even the authors, but for me it doesn't stop there. I must talk books. When I read a book, I want to talk about the book with someone else who has shared that experience. Mind you, I don't want a book review: I loved that book! or I hated that book! I can decide those things myself, and I don't particularly want consensus.

I like to talk about what happened, what passages sang, what shocked me. I want to talk about the surprises. I need to talk about the endings. Fortunately, I have surrounded myself with many reading friends who are willing, even eager, to do just that. In some ways, our friendships are strengthened by that common activity.

The local library regularly offers a program called "Let's Talk About It." Every other week, a group meets to discuss a particular work centered around a common theme. The sessions are generally led from academic professionals, usually from colleges nearby. The one starting in February in Hickory has a Southern literature theme, beginning with Robert Morgan's Gap Creek and including Dori Sanders' Clover and one of Kaye Gibbons' novels. Even though I have read at least three of the five books, I'll read again, just to be fresh for the discussions.

This week, I stumbled across a recent article from the New York Times entitled, "The Book Club with Just One Member," which reminded me that everyone doesn't share this need of mine. For some readers, evidently, the experience is so intensely personal and private that discussion feels like an intrusion. I can respect the attitude, even though I don't fully understand it. I suppose it helps that I am confident enough with my own personal reading preferences that I don't feel defensive when someone else judges a book differently. I can listen to a dissenting opinion without having to counter it. (Well, not always.)

The only response to literature that really irks me is the one that sounds like this: I hate reading. It's such a waste of time. I don't know why I have to read this stupid book (story, poem, play). Of course, as an English instructor, I hear these irksome comments all too frequently; fortunately, I see them as a challenge, not a deterrent. "What didn't you like?" I might ask. "Let's talk about it."

Let's Talk About It--or Maybe Not

Southern Summer Reading Challenge

Since I'm participating in the challenge on Maggie Reads blog to read three Southern novels between June 15 and August 15, it is time to post my second novel completed, Sheila Kay Adams' My Old True Love. I've mentioned the book in earlier posts, but I am giving this entire post's attention to the book. I started and finished the book--almost without stopping--at the beach this week. I chose this novel because Adams has been selected as the 2009 Ragan-Rubin Award winner by the North Carolina English Teachers Association. Although I had read her stories, I hadn't read her full-length works until now. I am so glad I did.

The novel, which I learned in her afterword was based on her family history, is set in Sodom, NC, in Madison County (known as Bloody Madison because of events during the Civil War. ) From the first page, Arty, the narrator, rang so true for me. Adams' use of dialogue, toned down, she says, with help from her editor, evoked the voices of my grandmother for me.

Sometimes when I read Southern dialect (my native tongue), I wonder how readers without my familiarity (translation: Yankees) will take to the book. Then I remind myself that when I have attended a Shakespearean production with friends who weren't English majors, that I had some of the same misgivings--needlessly. I do know, though, that you have to read with your ear. All those reading lessons about squelching "subvocalization" go right out the door.

This book handles one of the historical periods that fascinates me most, addressing the tension between sides in areas where almost no one owned slaves. The bigger story, though, is about love and family and inner demons. Woven throughout the narrative are the old ballads, or "love songs," as they've always been known in this part of the country. I was so excited to learn at the end of the book that a "soundtrack" for the book, called All the Other Fine Things, had been recorded. (Tim O'Brien, John Herrmann, and Dirk Powell did the same for the novel Cold Mountain, long before it became a movie.)

Reading this book accomplished two or three things: First, it made me long to sit down and talk to Sheila Kay Adams. I also want to talk to someone else who has read the book, just to work my way through it. It also made me want to re-read Ron Rash's novel The World Made Straight, which deals in part with the Bloody Madison episodes. Finally, I want to choose my next Southern novel.

Southern Summer Reading Challenge

Challenge

I just came across the Southern Reading 2009 Challenge. Check it out at Maggie Reads. The challenge to read at least three Southern books (any genre) begins May 15 and ends August 15. You can count me in. I've always loved novels by Southern writers, firmly believing that they merit reading beyond the region. The site offers suggestions, but I'll add some of mine as well.

I've already mentioned The Help, Kathryn Stockett's first novel, set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s. I also recommend all of Ron Rash's novels (from his first, One Foot in Eden to his latest Serena). So many people who read one at my recommendation have worked their way through the whole list. I always enjoy Clyde Edgerton's novel for a good laugh (usually with some underlying serious themes). This time of the year, you can read Dori Sanders' novel Clover and visit her at her peach stand one Highway 321 in South Carolina. I've read all of Joshilyn Jackson's novels (Gods in Alabama, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, and Between, Georgia.) Ann Patchett (who lives in Nashville) is another of my favorite writers. Her Bel Canto is one of my most memorable reading experiences. All of her novels are beautifully written but not alike at all.

For laughing until milk comes out your nose, try Celia Rivenbark (Bless Your Heart, Tramp, Just Like You--Only Prettier, and Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank). Although not your typical Southerner, David Sedaris did grow up in Raleigh. One particularly favorite of mine (in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, I believe) described his family's regular visits to the Atlantic coast, where they would speculate on names for a family beach house.

I'm hardly doing justice to the books on my shelves, but Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi, has some great titles on their First Editions Club list, many but not all by Southern authors. I can't wait to decide what to read next.

Challenge