Just walked in the door ~ Still

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis ~ by Lauren F. Winner, 2012, memoir

Synopsis:  In the critically acclaimed memoir Girl Meets God, Lauren F. Winner chronicled her sojourn from Judaism to Christianity.  Now, in Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, Winner describes how experiences of loss and failure unexpectedly slam her into a wall of doubt and spiritual despair:  “My belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone.”

Witty, relatable, and fiercely honest, Winner lays bare her experience of what she calls the “middle” of the spiritual life.  In elegant and spare prose, she explores why — in the midst of the overwhelming anxiety, loneliness, and boredom of her deepest questioning about where (or if) God is — the Christian story still explains who she is better than any other story she’s ever known.  Still is an absorbing meditation combining literary grace with spiritual wisdom.  It is sure to resonate with anyone looking to sustain a spiritual life in the midst of real life.

This book arrived in the mail today.  A couple of weeks ago, while waiting for this book to arrive, I got Girl Meets God (2002) from the library.  I wanted to read it first, and now I have the next installment of her faith journey at hand.  And, hey, she inscribed this fresh-off-the-presses book to me before mailing it.  See?

Thanks, Lauren.  I've already printed out the study guide and plan to go through it thoughtfully, day by day.

Beth Kephart's treasure hunt

You Are My Only ~ by Beth Kephart, 2011, YA fiction

Have you read this book yet?  Because of NaNoWriMo and writing at least 1,667 words a day, I haven't gotten around to telling the world I received this great temptation in the mail this week, from the author herself.  Thanks, Beth!  I call it a temptation because it's lots more fun to read what an excellent writer has already published than to sit here typing a story without a clue where I'll take it.  Mine starts with a couple of folks named Martha and Gary, and I didn't even pick their names.  (More about that later.) Beth's book — this particular one, I mean — is about Emmy and Sophie, and I have no idea how she came up with those names.

A missing child.
A devastated young mother.
Two girls.
One traumatic event.

That's from the dust jacket.  Read more about this book that I posted during a treasure hunt devised by the author, leading up to the publication of the book last week.  I entered the contest, and I was one of the winners.  (I think we all won.)

Anyway, my signed copy of the book arrived a couple of days ago, and I've been remiss about letting Beth know.  Is it okay to blame NaNoWriMo?  Probably not, but I do hope Beth knows how much I look forward to reading this one.  I've already read three of her earlier books.  I've read reviews, though, that let me know this latest one is the best.  I can hardly wait.

Nowhere Hair ~ by Sue Glader

Nowhere Hair ~ by Sue Glader, illustrated by Edith Buenen, 2011, children's

This is the story of a young girl who tries unsuccessfully to find her mother's missing hair, only to learn that medicine has made it fall out. She learns that she didn't cause the cancer, she can't catch it, and Mommy is still very much up for the job of mothering. The book, written in rhyme, explains hats, scarves, wigs, going bald in public, and the idea of being nice to people who may look a little different than you. It ends with the idea that what is inside of us is far more important than how we look on the outside. It's silly, and touching, and real.

"Let your hair down, and let yourself go" is a refrain in this video.



I came to this post in a roundabout way.  I am reading a book whose main character has survived cancer, so obviously, chemotherapy was mentioned.  Think of the word itself, its syllables:  che-mo-ther-a-py.  Long words are the ones most likely to by hyphenated in a book.  With the first syllable at the end of one line in my book, the word seemed changed, much as the poetry of e. e. cummings finds new meanings because words are re-arranged on the page.  The second part of this hyphenated word caused my reading to lurch to a stop as I pondered what I was seeing.

che-
motherapy

Do you see what I saw?  The word "mother" stopped me mid-sentence.

che-
mother-
apy

The word's meaning is far from where my thoughts were circling:

chemotherapy = the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect upon the disease-producing microorganisms or that selectively destroy cancerous tissue

I re-read the sentence to assure myself it had nothing to do with mother or mothering, even though "mother" is in the middle of that word.  Am I too easily distracted when the layout of a sentence — when a word must be split — derails my attention from the story?

I googled "mother chemotherapy" and this book popped up.  I've never seen it, and there's no copy at my library (I checked).  But doesn't it seem like a perfectly wonderful book?  Especially since October is breast cancer awareness month.

A blog-hop treasure hunt

You Are My Only ~ by Beth Kephart, 2011, YA fiction

Emmy Rane is married at nineteen, a mother by twenty.  Trapped in a life with a husband she no longer loves, Baby is her only joy.  Then one sunny day in September, Emmy takes a few fateful steps away from her baby and returns to find her missing.  All that is left behind is a yellow sock.  Fourteen years later, Sophie, a homeschooled, reclusive teenage girl is forced to move frequently and abruptly from place to place, perpetually running from what her mother calls the "No Good."  One afternoon, Sophie breaks the rules, ventures out, and meets Joey and his two aunts.  It is this loving family that gives Sophie the courage to look into her past.  What she discovers changes her world forever.

You Are My Only will be published on October 25, 2011.  Beth Kephart, the author of this book, challenged us to a treasure hunt, giving us the rules on September 8.  We were to look for five guest posts she would do.  Each one would tell part of the story about the making of You Are My Only:

• The transformation of Sophie from the 40-year-old character she began her (fictional) life as to the 14-year-old at the center of this book.
• The voice of Emmy — where it came from, how it seized Kephart.
• The history behind the asylum that inspired a key setting in the book.
• The story behind Cloris and Helen, characters Kephart had been developing for more than ten years.
• The story behind the book's title (and insights into titles that were considered, then rejected).

These posts would be going up on different days.  Our task was to find all five entries, post them collectively on our own blogs, and send her the link to be entered into the drawing.  Here are the prizes she offered:

Two winners will be selected.  Each will win these two things:  A signed copy of You Are My Only AND a critique (by yours truly) of the first 2,000 words of a work-in-progress.  As many of you know, I teach memoir at the University of Pennsylvania and served as the inaugural readergirlz author in residence.  I have written in multiple genres and critique adult fiction for major U.S. newspapers.  Your manuscript can, I am hinting, be in any genre, save for a screenplay, about which I have absolutely zero expertise.

So here are links to Kephart's guest posts (along with the dates published):

• Sept 9 @ Mundie Moms ~ "The (furious) metamorphosis of Sophie"

What would happen if I told the story of Sophie as a 14-year-old girl?

• Sept 21 @ My Friend Amy ~ "Opening the door to Cloris and Helen"

Cloris and Helen belong to Sophie. She needs them and their kooky ways, their endless baking, their shiny Airstream, their Alice-in-Wonderland dioramas, their love for Willa Cather—to show her what is kind and good and right in this world. To show her a salvation version of normal.

• Oct 10 @ The Story Siren ~ "When Emmy called, I listened"

Below are the first Emmy words I ever wrote, and the fact is, in draft after draft after draft, I barely changed them. "The baby is missing. The baby is not where I had left her—checked the rope and strapped her in, pulled my weight into the branch above, and said out loud, This is good and nice and sturdy."

• Oct 11 @ Chick Loves Lit ~ "What name should we give this book?"

"But nothing was right. Nothing fit just so. Too grown-up. Too childish. Too familiar. Too obscure."

• Oct 11 @ Bookalicious ~ "I was obsessed with an asylum"

"What would it have been like to be committed against one’s will in an institution like Byberry?"

Since I am also a published writer, I was very interested in (1) how she came up with the details of this book, and (2) the prize, which includes Kephart's critique of the first 2,000 words of what I'm writing.  (I've gotta be optimistic, here, you know.)  I would love to have Kephart take a serious look at what I'm writing.

I'll give the last word to Beth Kephart, posted yesterday on her blog:

"I live my quiet writer life knowing this:  stories make their way to the right readers."

Mailbox Monday ~ hey, I won a book

Wendy at Caribousmom had several book giveaways during BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week). I entered the one for Speculative Fiction — and won!

The Knowledge of Good and Evil ~ by Glenn Kleier, 2011

Read an excerpt.

Summary from the Publisher:

On December 4, 1968, world-famous theologian Father Louis Merton visited the ancient Dead City of Polonnaruwa, Ceylon, entered the Cave of the Spirits of Knowledge, and experienced a vision.  It’s claimed he found a backdoor to the Afterlife, that he looked into the Mind of God and escaped with a secret so powerful it could change all humanity ... bring wars to a standstill ... end forever the age-old hatreds between races, creeds and cultures.

Six days later as Merton prepared to announce his discovery at a religious conference, he suffered a horrific death under mysterious circumstances.  But the secret did not die with him.  Merton left behind a journal.

Years later, beautiful psychologist Angela Weber and her troubled fiancé, Ian Baringer, are on the hunt for Merton’s long-lost journal and its door to the Afterlife.  Angela, an agnostic, wants to help Ian heal the wounds of a traumatic childhood plane crash that took the lives of his parents.  Ian, a defrocked priest, no longer trusts in religion’s promise of eternal life.  He must know for certain if he will ever see his parents again, and is driven to find out firsthand what lies beyond, and what it holds for mankind.

Together, Angela and Ian plunge headlong into a global chase, pursued by a shadowy cult, dead bodies, and destruction in their wake.  If Ian and Angela succeed, they will defy the gates of heaven and hell to learn a secret hidden from the world since the dawn of time.

This one sounds very good.  And the good news for ME is that the book arrived in the mail Saturday.  Yippee!  Thank you, Wendy!

Today's Monday, so I think I'll call this Mailbox Monday, even though I've never done this meme before.  The book did arrive in the mail, after all.  This photo comes from Wendy's blog.

This week’s edition of Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Leah at Amused by Books.  To share what arrived in your mailbox and see what other readers got in the mail this week, click here.  Be warned:  Leah says joining the fun "can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists."

The Woman Warrior ~ by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts ~ by Maxine Hong Kingston, 1975, 1976

The back cover of this paperback says "Fiction/Literature" and has this quote from The New York Times:   "As an account of growing up female and Chinese-American in California, in a laundry of course, it is anti-nostalgic; it burns the fat right out of the mind.  As a dream — of the 'female avenger' — it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword."

Maxine Hong Kingston

This is the book we're reading this month in the Feminist Classics challenge.  The book is introduced here.  Some readers will also be "working our way through the rest of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir," but Kingston's book, which is already on my bookshelf, is the one I plan to read.

The Woman Warrior blends memoir with Chinese folktale to portray the experience of Chinese-Americans in the wake of the Chinese revolution.  I was surprised to read on A Year of Feminist Classics that The Woman Warrior is the most frequently taught text in modern university education.

I've read other books by Maxine Hong Kingston, and really like her writing.  But I haven't gotten to this one yet.  Have you read it?  What did you think?

"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins ~ teaser

Alison at So Many Book, So Little Time recently wrote about Billy Collins, the Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003).  Her book group chose his book The Trouble with Poetry, or else she wouldn't likely have read that book.  Alison ended her post:

"The Lanyard" seemed to be a consensus favorite when the group met for lunch. For me, finishing the poem resulted in a gasp for air, so poignant are the final words.

I, of course, went looking for that poem, which I found on his web site.  I want to share it with you, along with photos I found in my memory and by googling until I found what I had visualized.

The Lanyard
by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Since reading Alison's post, I have picked up the book from my library, so now I can tell you this poem is on pages 45-46 of The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins, 2005.  I'm thinking of my mom as I write this.  She was very busy becoming a mother on this day, 71 years ago.  It's a debt I could never repay.

(And now I have a cat who is "as sure as a cat can be" that meowing a happy birthday song not only makes us even, but entitles her to treats.  Thank you for the song, Kiki.)

Born to Win ~ my telephone story

Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gesalt Experiments ~ by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward, 1971

I remember a day when I was reading a book while eating lunch at my desk and ran across an intriguing sentence:  "If you had only one hour to live, what would you do?" That same day, I wrote what I now think of as the telephone story, describing what I thought I might do in that situation.

The book was Born to Win, and I had spotted it when I went out to grab a sandwich. From other thoughts I associate with that day, like taking my lunch and the book back to my tenth-floor office in the Chattanooga Bank Building, I think it may have been 1979.  I was enjoying the book, not reading it straight through, but finding bits here and there that grabbed my attention.  When I came across the question, "If you had only one hour to live, what would you do?"  I thought, What, not even a whole day?

One of the possibilities that occurred to me was having my sister Ann spend that hour with me.  She and I had decided years earlier that the one who died first would try to "appear" to the other.  Yeah, I thought, I'd spend my last hour with Ann.  So before the lunch hour ended, I picked up the phone on my desk and called her.  The line was busy:  "Brrrtt, brrrtt, brrrtt." I was stymied when I tried to "reach out and touch someone" as the phone company's slogan suggested.  After my lunch break I got back to work, occasionally dialing Ann's number again.  "Brrrtt, brrrtt, brrrtt."  Over and over I got that busy signal and wondered who on earth she could be talking to for so long.  Late in the afternoon I had one of those lightbulb moments when I realized, "I wasted the final hour of my life trying to call Ann!"  If I'd truly had only one hour to live, I would have spent it unsuccessfully attempting to get through to my sister.  I would have died alone!

After work I drove straight to Ann's house and learned that rain had knocked out the phones in her area.  Water in the system caused a problem and the lines were out.  Ann had not been talking an inordinately long time; she was marooned by a faulty phone line.  And thus I "died" alone.

There's a metaphor in this story!

Another day, another book

I stopped by the library on my way home today to pick up the December book selection for the Book Buddies, my online book club.  The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogama (2009) looks like one I'll enjoy, and I was please to discover it's a relatively small paperback book.  Easy to hold while reading in bed, for one thing.

He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem -- ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.  She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.  And every morning, the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew.

Now this is REALLY living in the present!  Eva of A Striped Armchair recently wrote a very interesting post listing books about neuroscience and neurological illnesses.  Yesterday, one of the many comments referred to The Housekeeper and the Professor:

"I’ve heard that in The Housekeeper and the Professor and Rebecca West’s Return of the Soldier feature amnesia or memory problems as well, haven’t read them yet though."

What perfect timing, picking up that book the very next day.  I'm halfway through with Hummingbirds by Joshua Gaylord (2003), so I'll probably finish it before starting this one.

I wonder if anyone (else) has ever done two Library Loot posts in one week (here's my first one).  Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  Marg has the Mister Linky this week, if you'd like to share the loot you brought home.

On another note:
My brother Jim (reading the bulletin on the front row of this June photo) had a heart attack on Friday, November 19.  When I visited him in the cardiac intensive care unit today, he was waiting to be transferred to a room.  Jim, who had a liver transplant two years ago, will be having bypass surgery in about six weeks, according to his doctors.

The Lacuna ~ book beginning (and teaser)

I'm back to this book, which I put aside for a couple of books due back at the library in seven days.  I'm enjoying this book, and this evening I realized I haven't thought to use it for either Book Beginnings on Friday or a Teaser post.  I'll rectify that oversight now.

"In the beginning were the howlers.  They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.  It would start with just one:  his forced, rhythmic groaning like a saw blade.  That aroused others near him, nudging them to bawl along with his monstrous tone.  Soon the maroon-throated howls would echo back from other trees, farther down the beach, until the hole jungle filled with roaring trees.  As it was in the beginning, so it is every morning of the world" (p. 1 of The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, 2009).

This is beautiful writing, but it doesn't really entice me to continue.  In the next sentence, we learn a boy and his mother believe these howlers are devils screaming because they want to consume human flesh.  That still doesn't make me want to continue.  I must say the opening doesn't really appeal to me, but because I'm reading it with my online Book Buddies, I continued -- and it does become more interesting.  I have read 309 pages of this 509-page book.


Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Katy F. at A Few More Pages.  Click this link to read other book beginnings.

Beautiful cover ~ intriguing book

"Throughout my childhood I struggled to answer the simplest of questions: where are you from? I was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents who moved to Lubbock, Texas, when I was six months old. During my childhood, my parents would uproot me every few years, from Texas to South Carolina to Virginia. Living in the American South, I was far from the image of a Southern belle, and yet the summers I spent in the Middle East only emphasized my American identity and made it clear to me that I would also never exactly be an Arab poster child." 

Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity -- My Own and What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos is a memoir by Manal M. Omar, published in August 2010.  New books in my library system are seven-day books, meaning I'll need to put aside The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, even though I'm only halfway through it.  From what I've read so far, I think this book will be a quick read.  And this note at the beginning of the book makes me even more curious:

"Barefoot in Baghdad takes its title from a popular Iraqi-Turkmen proverb that says, 'Walk barefoot and the thorns will hurt you.'  It is often used as a warning to those who challenge societal norms."

I love the cover!  The library book I'm holding has been processed, with corners and spine taped to keep the paperback cover sturdy and a library barcode added, but it still has that new book smell and no one -- absolutely no one! -- has paged through it yet.

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Katy F. at A Few More Pages.  Click this link to read other book beginnings.

Just walked in the door

Hummingbirds by Joshua Gaylord (2003) walked in my door today. Okay, you technical folks, it walked in the door using my feet.  At any rate it arrived in today's mail and made my TGIF even better than it already was.  After the week I've had at school, it was delightful to get a book without even going shopping.  I was the winner in Helen's drawing at Helen's Book Blog.

Helen took part today in a meme I've never heard of until now.  It's called Book Beginnings on Fridays.  It seems only appropriate, on the day her book arrived, that I should share the beginning of it.  So here it is, the opening paragraph of Hummingbirds:

"September means pressed white shirts. New socks. School shoes. Rigidly pleated skirts. "Those pleats. That's what morality looks like," one of the history teachers said once in class. He was young and exciting, and he was talking about the Inquisition, which seemed to give him a particular thrill. "That pleat right there," he said with an arch smile, pointing to one of the girls' freshly pressed skirts. "That's morality for you." No one knew exactly what he meant. But all of the girls laughed and shifted a little sideways in their seats."

Sounds a bit creepy, huh? Makes me wonder what comes next. Yes, it's true, that's exactly how far I've read in the book so far -- one paragraph.  In spite of my curiosity, I won't start reading this one just yet because I am a mere 34 pages into Barbara Kingsolver's 2009 novel The Lacuna.  This is the book chosen by my Book Buddies for our online discussion in November -- and November is upon us!  It's hard to believe Monday is the start of a new month.

Click this link to see what others say about the books they are reading this week.

Teaser with a question

Grammar Moves: Shaping Who You Are by Lawrence Weinstein and Thomas Finn has a copyright date of 2011. Here's the start of the Introduction:

"If you had to choose a punctuation mark as a symbol of yourself, which mark would it be?

"Are you a person who's inquisitive? Curious about other people? About life in general? Then maybe a question mark would be a good choice.

"Are you someone who takes chances, who's a doer, who craves excitement? That sounds like an exclamation point.

"Or perhaps you're steadfast and deliberate in your approach to life. You like things orderly and on an even keel. You might dub yourself Ms. or Mr. Period" (page 1).

Oh, I have no doubt which punctuation mark represents me!  Years ago I was so impressed with Robert Fulghum's thinking in his book Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door (1991). He calls a semicolon a "sign of continuing possibility" and ends the book with -- what else? -- a semicolon;

(Yes, just like that.)

This book -- Grammar Moves -- doesn't get to me (the semicolon, me, get it?) until Chapter 11.  Hey, guess what it says about semicolons:  "Grammar for Being Diplomatic."

Semicolon earrings

"Not only does the semicolon have multiple functions, but those functions also seem contradictory in nature; it can be both a divider and a uniter. ... The semicolon acts a lot like we do.  We, too, divide or unite, depending on the context in which we find ourselves.  Sometimes, for example, we need to keep people apart; sometimes we need to bring them together."

Yes!  A semicolon represents me.  Which punctuation mark would you pick?

A lonely only ~ it's a teaser

This week I brought home only one library book -- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, 1943 -- and that only because I'm leading the discussion of it for my online Book Buddies.  Synopsis:

Francie Nolan learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is romantic and hungry for beauty, like her father.  She is also deeply practical and in constant need of truth, like her mother.  And like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.

I haven't started reading it yet. First, I hope to finish a library book that's due back this week.  I've been so busy planning, teaching, and grading dozens of papers that I have been taking books back to the library unread.  Hmm, I wonder if I can do a teaser with this?  It will be a teaser for me as well as for you.  Opening the book at random, I'm reading this from page 123:

Johnny went back to thinking aloud.  "Married seven years and we've had three homes.  This will be my last home."

Francie didn't notice that he said my last home instead of our last home.

According to the back cover, Betty Smith was born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner on December 15, 1896, the same day (though five years earlier) as her fictional heroine Francie Nolan. The daughter of German immigrants, she grew up poor in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the very world she recreates with such meticulous detail in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Have you read this book?  What did you think of it?

An ad about the book Speak

Here's my review of Speak.  We are nearing the end of Banned Books Week (this weekend), but not the end of people trying to ban books. Have you read any banned books lately? Find links to several lists of challenged books on the sidebar of my Banned Books blog.

Jumping on the "banned wagon"

First edition cover

Mark Twain once said of his detractors: "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."

Twain knew about censorship.  His Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the most challenged and banned books ever.  Most object to the language, though the original detractors weren't bothered by the racial slur that people today find offensive.

Banned Books Week, sponsored annually by the American Library Association since 1982, starts today.  The title for this post comes from Sheila, who used it on her Book Journey blog this morning.

Speak ~ by Laurie Halse Anderson ~ is NOT pornography

Laurie Halse Anderson wrote on her blog:  This guy thinks SPEAK is pornography.  It caused a ruckus!  Today, Laurie posted The Power of Speaking Loudly.  Here's where I reviewed Speak.  Why don't you "speak up" during Banned Books Week, starting this Saturday?

Teaser ~ Secret Daughter

Kavita has a daughter and, in a culture that favors sons, her husband Jasu takes away the baby before Evita has even stopped bleeding. When the second baby is also a girl, Kavita saves her life by giving her away. Her third baby is a son:

"They have showered on her all the traditional gifts, as if this is her first baby, their first child. ... But no one acknowledges this, not even Jasu.  Only Kavita has an aching cavity in her heart for what she's lost. ... She prays she will be a good mother to her son, prays she has enough maternal love left in her heart for him, prays it didn't die along with her daughters" (p. 65).

I'm reading Secret Daughter, a 2010 novel by Shilpi Somaya Gowda.  I can hardly wait to see what happens to the daughter who is adopted by a couple in America and to both mothers, the one who gives her up and the one who raises her.

Seven Year Switch ~ here's a teaser for ya!

I'll be writing about this book in my very next post (tomorrow), but here is a humorous teaser I want to share from page 126 of Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook, 2010:

"Hey, girlfriend," Cynthia yelled from about three feet away.

I jumped.  "Geez," I said.  "I didn't even see you."

"I know.  I could have knocked you over with a fender."

That is not a typo.  This Cynthia character is constantly challenging me to see the world with new eyes as she comes up with one malapropism after another.  (The word malapropism comes from a character in Sheridan's 1775 book, The Rivals -- Mrs. Malaprop was noted for her misapplication of words.)  Here's another malapropism from Cynthia in Seven Year Switch, page 12:

"God, you never seem to amaze me."