Beth Kephart's Blog, page 177

Family Circle and Small Damages (blessed)

A long time ago I drew the conclusion that I was luckier than any girl had the right to be.



Today, proof absolute with these heart-expanding words from Family Circle Executive Editor Darcy Jacobs.  She uses them to recommend Small Damages to her associate editor, Celia, in the August issue of the magazine. Darcy's goodness to me is unparalleled.  I don't have the words.



A million thanks to Jessica Shoffel at Philomel, who does her job so exquisitely well, and to Tamra Tuller, who chose to read my book when it arrived at the old slush pile two years ago.  What an adventure we have had since then.

Kephart is a linguistic Midas—everything she puts to paper is golden, including this gem.

Brother, I'm Dying/Edwidge Danticat

Saturday night, a young woman I'll call E. returned from her year in Port-au-Prince, where she had been at work in a hospital clinic as a nutrition program coordinator.  Daughter of remarkably loving parents, sister to an incredibly talented and goodhearted son, E. is also a member of my church family (she is as well a super-star athlete, but that's a tale for another day).  We were all collectively holding our breath until E. arrived home safely.  We knew how much good she was doing over there.  We equally recognized that Haiti is not the easiest domicile for a recent college grad.



In honor of E.'s safe return home, I read Brother, I'm Dying, the Edwidge Danticat memoir.  The book had been sitting here for quite some time.  Having finished it this morning, I can neither understand nor forgive my earlier resistance to it.



For this is a book.  This is memoir at its most pure and form-redeeming—intelligent, researched, heartfelt.  Calmly and with great care, Danticat weaves together the story of the man who raised her as a child in Bel Air, Haiti (her uncle), and the man who fled to Brooklyn in an effort to create for his whole family a better life (her father).  Two brothers, then, two father figures, and two ultimately tragic trajectories as each man fights to survive impossible odds and their daughter fights hard not to lose them.  In a single year—2004—Danticat, now married, in Miami, pregnant with her daughter—will watch her world unravel.  She will bear witness to what revolutionary upheaval and disease can do to the men who, for so much of her youth, were not just essential but invincible.



Memoirs that make room for family history and country politics challenge their writers structurally; they ask more from the words on the page.  No false binding will do, no obvious superimpositions, no easy themes, no ready truths.  There are higher stakes, in memoirs like these.  More is expected, more wanted.  Danticat, who has proven herself in book after book, forges a remarkable narrative.  She is there throughout, of course; memoir by definition is an "I story.  But she is not her memoir's heroine; she is its maker, and there's a difference.  She has set out to honor others, not to claim pity for herself.  She has written with both intimacy and something I can only call nobility.  She has made of fragments a whole.  We believe her, utterly, when she writes these words:

I write these things now, some as I witnessed them and today remember them, others from official documents, as well as the borrowed recollections of family members.  But the gist of them was told to me over the years, in part by my uncle Joseph, in part by my father.  Some were told offhand, quickly.  Others, in greater detail.  What I learned from my father and uncle, I learned out of sequence and in fragments.  This is an attempt at cohesiveness, and at re-creating a few wondrous and terrible months when their lives and mine intersected in startling ways, forcing me to look forward and back at the same time.  I am writing this only because they can't.

I am writing this only because they can't.  Those who dismiss memoir as a genre have not read Brother, I'm Dying. 

Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent: A Partial Cover Reveal

I've worked with my artist husband on two previous books—Ghosts in the Garden (New World Library) and Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business (Berrett-Koehler).  This past year, we've been collaborating on a third—Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, an illustrated teen novel that features Philadelphia's own Baldwin Locomotive Works, Eastern State Penitentiary, the great Schuylkill River, a blowzy named Pearl, and my hero George Childs, among other places and souls.  It features, as well, the odd tonics and medicines of the time—the strange promises and possible powers of herbal concoctions and flowering vines.  William of Dangerous Neighbors fame stands at the center of this novel.  Two twins waft through.



This morning, my husband has completed the design of the book's cover (he has also created nearly a dozen interior illustrations), and while I cannot unveil the whole, I am happy to share this small corner of an image that perfectly captures 1871 and, at the same time, suggests the story's very modern spirit. 



I am ridiculously happy about all of this.  Not just that the book will exist (spring 2013).  But that my fictional William was rendered by my real-life William, and that a very kind press is giving both a home.[image error]

Flyleaf and the gift of a glorious Small Damages review

I joined Twitter just a short while ago—an experiment, really, an act of curiosity.  It has taken me some time to find my rhythms there, to locate the heart of the community.  The hearts, I should say, of the many communities.



But it is because of Twitter that I now know a certain Heather, who loved the same books I loved as a teen (To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby) and who now has a beautiful virtual book world called The Flyleaf Review: The Thoughts of a Devoted Reader. 



It is there that I find my book today, Small Damages, which Heather apparently gained in an Arc swap with her friend, Jen. I was a new name to Heather.  She wasn't sure about the storyline, but she gave Small Damages a try.  She has written a most exquisite, thoughtful, lengthy review, and I hope that you will look for the whole of it here. 



It would be impossible to choose a favorite few lines from the review, for I have many.  I am honored, for one thing, by Heather's comparison of my work to the work of Gayle Forman.  I was equally taken back (in a very good way) by this comparison, below: 

You guys, I
am big fan of romance in books. All kinds. I like the big, in-your-face
romance of some books, but I also can appreciate the soft, quiet, less
obtrusive romance like the one written in Small Damages. It
is a completely different kind of animal, but no less breathtaking,
heart pounding or effective. In many ways I was reminded of the love
story between Puck and Sean in Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races. And if you have my review of that book, you know that I LOVE the romance between those two.

 

So many thanks, Heather!

slowly extricating myself from The Busy Trap

This beautiful young man is my nephew, a child growing up on the outskirts of London.  He is buoyant, instantly generous, loving, and a fine host at his own party.  I like how he smiles.  I like how he plays, how he relaxes with the hour.  I like how his job, right now, is happiness.



I thought of this happy kid as I read the New York Times Op/Ed piece (penned by Tim Kreider) on busyness, and its many bedevil-ments.  "If you live in American in the 21st century you've probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are," Kreider begins.  "It's become the default response when you ask anyone how they're doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.'  It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint.  And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: 'That's a good problem to have,' or 'Better than the opposite.'"



Kreider was, of course, aiming his pen at me.  (Hey, as a memoirist/narcissist it's a conclusion I'm bound to draw.)  Crazy busy was my theme song.  Overwhelmed was my word du every jour.  I'd like to, but I can't.  Yes, folks.  That was me.  A lot of it was circumstance, pressures and responsibilities I had not actively chosen for myself.  But much of it stemmed from choices I had made—to endlessly shore up family finances, to write (again), to volunteer (some more), to chase spider webs at midnight that no one but yours truly can see.



Not long ago, I declared my desire for a lesser life—one less crammed with to-do lists, less amenable to busy boasts.  I wanted to, needed to, sleep more.  I wanted to live more.  I wanted to have more time away from the computer, more time in gardens, more time with books, more time to experiment in the kitchen.  I wanted, frankly, more time for walks with my son, more time to scheme up art projects with my husband, more time alone.  I bought close to three dozen books—recent classics I had missed—and set out to read them.  I made time for walks with long-time friends.  I sat and looked at photographs—not in a hurry, and for no applicable reason.



And when client work arrived, as client work must and will arrive, I didn't promise a next-day delivery.  I did the work, best as I could, same high standards in place.  But I didn't do it in a breathless rush when the rest of my timezone was sleeping.



I'm liking me better this way, but I know how hard it will be to avoid relapsing into BusyNess.  I am keeping Kreider's article close, therefore, for when I'm tempted to fall off the wagon.  I share this Kreider paragraph, with the hope that you'll read the whole:

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against
emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or
meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour
of the day. I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she
wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for
some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was
obviated when “menu” buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see
this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of
institutional self-delusion. More and more people in this country no
longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a
cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe
it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic
exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do
doesn’t matter.

And then there's just one more thing.... My dear friend Katrina Kenison is featured in this equally important New York Times story (this one written by Alina Tugend), "Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary."  I felt like one very lonesome mother a decade ago, when writing toward these themes in Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World.  It is extraordinarily heartwarming and hope-inducing to see Ordinary elevated to its rightful place of loveliness.  It is equally wonderful to read my friend Becca's words on her ordinary yesterday. Becca, who is the farthest thing imaginable from average.

Making Funny Count (And Avoiding the Nasties)

There are humorists whose words are assaults—funny, perhaps, but mostly acidic, pointed, seething. Anger lies at the core of such humor. A hint of retaliation.  A hope, perhaps, that by glossing a story with the ha-ha funnies no one will notice what the tale is really about, or how deep the damage runs. 



There are humorists, conversely, whose jests come at the expense, mostly, of themselves.  Childhood was funny to them; childhood was a boon.  They grew up awkward or they grew up confused, and anyone who happens to stand in their wit's way has (it's clear) been tenderly assessed.  They will be getting ice cream later.



I prefer Humorist Type 2, and Haven Kimmel is a star among them.  Consistently funny, highly literary, surprisingly facile in her rhythms and subject matters.  For those looking for something to do on this hot-across-the-country day, I recommend her deservedly famous memoir, A Girl Named Zippy.  You'll forget that you are sitting alone by the window fan, your lemonade glass empty.  You'll stop praying for a breeze.



A passage to get you started lies below.  Before I get to that, though, I feel that I must say this:  I love the little girl above, whom I snapped one day at an event.  The only thing she has in common with Haven's description below is that she is, obviously, a dear, dear thing.

We tried a variety of hairstyles in those early years.  The really short haircut (the Pixie, as it was then called) was my favorite, and coincidentally, the most hideous.  Many large predatory birds believed I was asking for a date.  I especially liked that style because I imagined it excused me from any form of personal hygiene, which I detested.  I was so opposed to bathing that I used to have a little laughing reaction every time a certain man in town walked by and said hello to me and I had to respond with "Hi, Gene."



After a year as a Pixie, my sister decided what my hair needed was "weight."  Melinda executed all the haircutting ideas in our house and, in fact, cut off the tip of my earlobe one summer afternoon because she was distracted by As the World Turns.



The weight we added to my hair made me look like a fuzzy bush, a bush gone vague.....

Note:  After posting this earlier today, I read this beautiful Alessandra Stanley tribute to Nora Ephron.  It includes these lines, much smarter than my own, about the power of being funny without cruelty:

It’s hard to be funny without malice, and discontent is so often the
flint for humor. Nora turned dross to gold and didn’t hold on to rancor.
She suffered fools. That fundamental good humor was a high octane fuel
that let her produce five times as much as anyone else and still find
the time — effortlessly — to host a dinner, show up at a protégé’s book
party, or make a photo album to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday.

Ruta Sepetys/Out of the Easy

In the heat of the summer, after a night of hail and thunder clashes, a white package arrives on my stoop.  It's a book that I've been longing for—an early copy of Out of the Easy by the tremendously talented, radiantly successful, and I-know-it-for-a-fact-good-hearted Ruta Sepetys.



This book will, I'm sure, be as beloved as Ruta's first, the New York Times bestselling, multiple-award winning, translated-into-every-conceivable-language Between Shades of Gray.  I just have a feeling, and besides, this is a Tamra Tuller Philomel book.  We know that that's a formula that works.



I'm all done with my complicated sentences.  I'm going to spend the weekend reading this book.  I'll let you know how great it is, so that you can look for it eagerly in February 2013, when it officially debuts.

a happy Small Damages day

I feel blessed today by the news (thank you, Jessica Shoffel) that Small Damages appears in Bella, an adult lifestyles magazine, as a Hot Beach Read.  It's thrilling crossover placement for a book that I do believe is right for teens and adults alike, and it's especially fun to have a Hot Beach Read, as several chapters of the book do take place along the Jersey Shore.  Thank you, Renee J. Fountain, for including me on this fantastic list.



I am also so very grateful for these words in Fikt Shun—a truly beautiful blog.  And, finally, to learn that the LA Times Summer Reads list has been syndicated again, this time in the Green Bay Post-Gazette.

wedding anniversary: me, then.

So many years ago, it seems.  But there I stand, in my mother's bay window, on the edge of a journey.

Today

was a day of health, a day of energy.  I took a walk and bought friends gifts.  I hugged dear Heather, whose baby boy is coming soon.  I cleaned windows, straightened neglected places, dusted windowsills, read old magazines, finished reading one book, started another, did some client work, made up my own chicken cacciatore recipe, and danced a little when the meal worked out just fine. I received a kind review for Small Damages from School Library Journal.  I had the pleasure of sharing the news with Philomel's Tamra Tuller and Jessica Shoffel. It means a lot to have people like that with whom to share such news.



There was a breeze. 



My boy was happy.