“There are words that I am looking for and when I find those words I will know that they were the words I was looking for, to tell people about the shapes of things inside me.” As Dear Lucy begins there is a sense that the narrator, Lucy, is a bit off. Her determination to be acknowledged as good and useful is extreme and the lengths to which she goes to be heard become ... Read More...
Jessica Soffer: Interview AND Recipes
Earlier this week I reviewed Jessica Soffer's debut novel, Tomorrow There will be Apricots. The power and grace of this novel have now pushed me to a point of superstition because she is the fifth debut novelist this year (!) who has grabbed and shaken me and each has done it in a different way. It's making me fearful that I'll be reading nothing but drek for the rest of 2013 ... Read More...
Shakespeare Saved My Life
Dr. Laura Bates is an English professor, specializing in Shakespeare, at Indiana State University. For the past fifteen years she has taught at college and in prison, where she brings Shakespeare into the lives of some of the prison systems most hardened criminals. Shakespeare Saved My Life is her book about this journey and about one inmate in particular that she worked ... Read More...
Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel
Many people have experienced loneliness in their life but for Thurlow Dan it was a call to organize a movement. The Helix is his solution to the isolated insulated lives we live—a reach-out-and-connect-with-someone group with no ideology beyond sharing and human interaction. Unfortunately, it is this lack of forethought that has landed Thurlow in some big trouble in Fiona’s ... Read More...
Tomorrow There will be Apricots
Tomorrow there will be Apricots is a portrait in sadness, the kind inflicted by others and the kind brought on by self. Lorca is a 14-year-old girl who is trying to gain the attention of her distant mother, who is a chef, and so turns to Victoria, an Iraqi woman who once owned a popular restaurant in the neighborhood and is now offering cooking classes. Her husband has recently ... Read More...
Powell’s Event: Peter Rock
Last week I reviewed the The Shelter Cycle, the newest book from Portland author, Peter Rock, and got to attend a reading of the book at Powell’s. It was the second author event I attended where the writer is also a teacher and it makes for a unique evening. To begin with, there are often a lot of students in the crowd—especially for Rock who teaches at a local private ... Read More...
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