Beth Kephart's Blog, page 203
January 20, 2012
My Chicago Tribune Review of American Dervish
Many are talking about American Dervish, the Ayad Akhtar novel that has already sold in close to two dozen countries and is, I suggest in my review for the Chicago Tribune, set to gain the popular momentum of The Help.
You can find my thoughts here.
Thanks to Elizabeth Taylor for trusting me with the book.
when, exactly, did you become an adult?
Adulthood. It sneaks up on you and then, in a flash, it not only is, but it persists. There is no going back.
Or is there?
Can books turn back the tides of time?
This morning I received a note regarding a post entitled: 11 Books to Celebrate on Coming-of-Age Day. The classics are here, along with a few modern titles. Since I've read and loved many of these books, I share the list with you.
What would you add to the list, if you could? [image error]
January 19, 2012
how I write, and a small scene from Berlin
At work on a new novel set in Berlin for Tamra Tuller of Philomel, I stop (breath held) to read the first 75 pages through. I return to photographs. I skinny things down, reverse the order of scenes, change the sound of a voice, then (breathing again) write forward.
It is the way it goes. The going back to move ahead. The shaving away to make room. All the way through the writing a novel I am held in suspense. Can it be? Will it?
I think it can. I hope it will. But it is one page at a time, and, often, it is disappearing pages. I hold onto scenes like this:
[image error]
The Turks have
been out since dawn, the Gastarbeiters.
The caravans are busy, the little corner shops, the wood smoke piles,
the minced lamb man and the dill weed man and the lady who sells the sesame
kuver. The air is a mix-up
of factory bells and machine scree, the wide wallop of Arabelle's bike wheels
across the cobblestone streets, the songs of the Chaotens and the wind in the plane
trees. The cars are pissed, the
buses are crowded, the U-bahn chinks on its rails. When we finally hit the platz, Arabelle takes her big booted
feet off the pedals and conks her legs out straight, letting her coat catch the
wind. She hee-haws like a donkey.
"Safe again!" she
says.
January 18, 2012
Can Book Bloggers Change a Life? A Definitive Answer in Publishing Perspectives
Anyone who follows this blog knows just how important book bloggers have been to me. As first readers, as confidantes, as bright and rustling wings.
I was recently given the chance to tell that story to Publishing Perspectives, an on-line magazine spearheaded by Ed Nawotka and sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair that covers the book industry here and around the globe. I had thought, when I began to write, that I might list all the bloggers who have been so instrumental in my career. It quickly became clear that that would be an impossibility—that I would consume all allotted characters on blogger URLs before I had a chance to fully explain. You all know who you are, of course. Many of you appear permanently on this page. I hope you know how much you matter.
(Please also see Ed's call for responses to the book blogger question here. Perhaps you'll lend your voice to the conversation.)
Today I would specifically like to thank a certain Danielle of There's a Book, who has been a pillar in my writing life—a buoyant, thoughtful, endearing advocate who has cared deeply about these stories I tell and has—in her own time, just because she is who she is—found ways to spread the word. I didn't know this until last night, but Danielle also named You Are My Only one of her top reads of last year, one of the books she most recommended to people in 2011, the most beautifully written book she read in 2011, and the book that had the greatest impact on her.
Danielle also named Small Damages, due out in July from Philomel, as the young adult book she is most anticipating in 2012.
See all of Danielle's thoughtful recommendations here.
I'm not sure that any writer could hope for more than that. I am sure, however, that anyone who questions the value of book bloggers has not had the privilege of meeting Danielle.
Great thanks again to all of you who have made such a difference in my life.
My other stories for Publishing Perspectives can be found here:
The Attraction-Repulsion of International Literature: My conversation with Alane Salierno Mason
Transforming Children's Book Coverage at the New York Times: My conversation with Pamela Paul
Success is when the world returns your faith: My conversation with editor Lauren Wein
Between Shades of Gray: The Making of an International Bestseller
[image error]
January 17, 2012
Everything in This Country Must/Colum McCann
Ivy Goodman—writer, teacher, and quite loved friend—sent me a book over the holidays.
She does things like that.
Every book that Ivy has ever sent has been considered, right. Most of the time these are books that I hadn't known I needed. Often, they make the trip to my classroom at Penn. This newest one, The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story edited and introduced by Anne Enright, is no exception.
Last night—too tired to write, too early for bed—I turned to Ivy's gift and thumbed through toward the end, where Colum McCann, a writerly hero of mine, has a very short piece titled "Everything in This Country Must." The first lines sound like nothing he has ever written, and for the sound of this story alone, it must be read.
A summer flood came and our draft horse got caught in the river. The river smashed against stones and the sound of it to me was like the turning of locks. It was silage time and the water smelled of grass. The draft horse, Father's favourite, had stepped in the river for a sniff maybe and she was caught, couldn't move, her foreleg trapped between rocks. Father found her and called Katie! above the wailing of the rain. I was in the barn waiting for drips on my tongue from the ceiling hole.
But there's far more than mere style in this brief McCann tale. There's brilliance. There's devastation. It's the sort of story that feeds a hungry mind for a week. I keep returning to it.
The business of teaching memoir, excerpt from a work in progress
As the semester begins, I look back on a work-in-progress:
This is no casual enterprise—this business of teaching memoir. We are speaking, after all, about
voice. We are speaking about how
we shape what we have lived, what we have seen. About how we honor what we love and defend what we believe
in. Makers of memoir dwell with
ideas and language, with themselves.
They counter complexity with clarity. They locate a story inside the contradictions of their
lives—the false starts and the presumed victories, the epiphanies that rub
themselves raw nearly as soon as they are stated.
January 16, 2012
A kind citation by Main Line Today
It is possible that magazines don't know how happy they make authors when they pay attention to the books that authors write.
For the record, this citation by Main Line Today and Emily Riley made me exquisitely happy, and I have a certain Kim (she's gorgeous, perhaps you'll someday meet her) to thank for letting me know.
From Main Line Today, then, which chose You Are My Only as a staff favorite:
With a story seemingly ripped from the headlines, the award-winning author and Main Line Today
contributor spares readers the sensationalism and, instead, seamlessly
weaves the dual narratives into a plot that races toward a stunning
finish.
Read the whole thing here.
Yes Yes Y'All and other books on my son's syllabus
My son's major is advertising. His special interest is the world: How does an ad that plays well in Mexico, for example, play in France? How must it be adapted? How do cultural expectations and local myths influence how people both look for and receive messages?
It's a line of inquiry that he has come to on his own, a course of study magnificently facilitated by a university that offers courses with titles that could be lines torn from poetry.
Case in point: This semester, my son will be studying the history of hip-hop. I didn't quite know what that meant until I received the book list from the book store (and that only because the books were bought with my credit card).
Don't you just love a course that asks its students to buy titles like these?
Black Bourgeoisie
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
Hard Core
Hip-Hop Revolution in the Flesh
Reinventing Africa
Sound Clash
Yes Yes Y'All
Don't Breathe a Word: the words have power video
Holly Cupala should be a movie star. Click on the frame above; you'll see what I mean.
But I digress.
Because Holly Cupala also has a brand new book out—a second young adult novel called Don't Breathe a Word
that has lit up the blog-o-sphere with high praise from enthused Holly
fans. I can't wait to read this book about life on the Seattle streets
myself. Holly puts her gorgeous heart into every sentence she writes.
In the meantime, I'm delighted to join Justina Chen, Melissa Walker,
Stephanie Kuehnert, Sarah Stevenson, Denise Jaden, Lish McBride, Lisa
Schroeder, Cynthia Jaynes, Tara Kelly, Joelle Anthony, Stasia Ward
Kehoe, Janet S. Fox, Tina Ferraro, and Janet Lee Carey in this video
celebration of a theme that runs throughout Holly's book and is so
important to us all: words have power.
Happy book launch, Miss Cupala! And thank you for including me among your friends of considered and special young adult authors.
the goodbye road (the twenty-second view from the car)
How we drive, how it goes, as we return our son to his final semester of college. 
