Follow-up Novels: Reading the Next Book

 All my reading life, I've enjoyed finding an author whose work I enjoyed and then plowing my way through their complete works. There's very little pattern to my "author reading" either. In junior high, I read everything by Daphne du Maurier after loving Rebecca.  I was surprised to learn she lived until 1989, since she quit publishing around 1972, right when I was reading her novels. I also read Lloyd C. Douglas' novel The Robe and then read all of his books, first the sequel The Big Fisherman and then the series set in more modern day.

If I like a first novel I read by an author, I'll willing to get another one a shot. What I love best is an author who can follow up with something just as good
but original. While I've had a little more reading time lately, I picked up two books from my "to read" list from that category. I had loved Euphoria, a novel that draws from the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead, a story of love and intrigue set in remote villages in New Guinea. When her novel Writers & Lovers came out with rave reviews and a

recommendation from Ann Patchett on the Parnassus website, I was sold.

Casey, the protagonist, has finished a writing program and has been working on her first novel for about six years. She is overwhelmed with college loans, living in a garden shed, and doing restaurant work to keep her head above water. Her friend Muriel takes her along to a reading by Oscar, a relatively famous writer. Casey can't afford to buy his book, but she recognizes him when he comes to her restaurant with his sons he is raising after losing his wife to cancer. His is moved by her kindness to the boys, who plan to pay for their father's meal as a birthday surprise--for which they are for woefully underfunded--and the two end up developing a relationship.

By coincidence, she is also seeing another aspiring writer, a young man in Oscar's critique circle who also teaches high school. On the surface, the story--something of a love triangle--seems ordinary, but the development of the characters, the clever details (that would certainly ring true to anyone who's worked in a fast-paced restaurant setting), and the satisfaction of the way loose ends are tied up make it something more.

Here's my confession: I started reading the novel on my iPad while working at a blood drive. I was surprised when I saw how many pages I had read. Only as I neared the end did I have the nerve to check to confirm what I suspected: I had somehow skipped a good chunk. I read to the end then skimmed the beginning until I got to the part I had missed. It explained a lot, but honestly, I think I enjoyed the novel as much as I would have if I'd read it correctly. I do think anyone who's ever wanted to write and publish will be struck by her experiences and the reactions of those who try to feed her on doubt. (Her landlord, learning that she's an aspiring writer, says he is surprised she thinks she has something to say.)

Another second read by a novelist I enjoyed the first time was Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano. I had loved her novel A Good Hard Look set in Milledgeville, Georgia, during the Kennedy era. In that book, Flannery O'Connor (with her peacocks) is a secondary character.

Her latest novel is a complete departure from that one. Edward, a 12-year-old boy, is the only survivor of a plane crash as his family is flying to their new home in California. He is taken in by his mother's sister and her husband, an infertile couple facing their own grief. The story alternates between the flight leading up to the crash and the boy's attempt to return to some kind of normalcy.

Both of these books were so unlike the predecessors, but I enjoyed reading both. Now I have a newly arrived copy of Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles (who wrote News of the Day.) I am eager to get started.

Follow-up Novels: Reading the Next Book

What to Do During the Long Days of Long Months? READ

If we aren't reading anything else during this l-o-o-o-n-n-g pandemic, we are reading memes. Nothing makes tedium intolerable like humor. I've seen several variations of the idea that we can no longer say, "If I ever had time, I'd. . . ." because we have it and we aren't. Since I'm not in the car as often as I usually am, I don't get through all the audiobooks checked out from the library before they disappear from my devices. During this long stretch of time with my calendar virtually cleared, though, I am finding time to read.

One of the most uplifting books had been on my list for awhile: The Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defede. I had heard the story, even from personal accounts, of the passengers on international flights headed to the U.S. on 9/11 that were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland. The passengers on more than sixty planes almost outnumbered the residents of the town, yet the "Newfies" put out the welcome mat and did everything they could to make their stay not only tolerable but pleasant.

Defede follows the stories of passengers, pilots, air traffic controllers, and local citizens as their lives came together. Two families were on their way home after international adoptions; they were weary and just wanted to go home. One family knew their son, a firefighter near Ground Zero, hadn't been accounted for. A major executive for Hugo Boss was on his way to Fashion Week and, at first, was discomfited by lack of access to comfortable underwear. When people within his corporation planned to have him picked up on a private jet, he declined, choosing instead to wait it out with fellow passengers.

While the book jogs memories of those days we all spent in from the our television screens that fall, it also reminds us how difficult times often bring out the best in people. When people nearby notice a rabbi and his companions not eating, they realize the lack of kosher food and arrange to provide food and an appropriate kitchen. Local citizens offered the stranded passengers rides, meals, and even places to sleep. A couple of women, on a break from their own families, bought camping gear and set up outside the community building where many of the others slept.

The story reminds me that once the pandemic ends and our "shelter in place" orders are safely lifted, we too will have stories emerging that give us hope in human nature.

What to Do During the Long Days of Long Months? READ