Beth Kephart's Blog, page 36

Lila/Marilynne Robinson: what is beautiful writing?

"Beautifully written." In blurbs, on blogs, in reviews, we encounter the words. But what, I often wonder, do they mean? I've seen "beautifully written" engraved upon the syncopation of relentless noun-verb passages, "beautifully written" decreed upon textbook-quality texts, "beautifully written" applied to a bondage of cliches, "beautifully written" attached to stories that run thin, no soul, all plot.

"Beautifully written." Beholder's words. Confusing words. Too easy words?

Maybe.

But this morning, having finally completed Lila, of the Marilynne Robinson Gilead trilogy, I am going to use the words. I am going to suggest that they represent, among other things, an author's ability to manage the precarious balance of beleaguered/valued life, the tumble of senses, sensations, thoughts that assault us as human beings and that might be/can be set down delicately on the page. Beautifully written, to me, is depth. It is sentences that erupt from no prescription. It is the absence of short cuts. It is people and scene in addition to plot. It is color. It is the urge to embed a story with ideas.

One example, from Lila, the story of a vagabond girl who marries an old minister and speaks little of the past that haunts her. He has the courage of patience. She discovers the courage of trust. She carries his child now, she believes herself uneducated, she thinks and is like this:

... how could the world go on the way it did when there were so many people living the same and worse? Poor was nothing, tired and hungry were nothing. But people only trying to get by, and no respect for them at all, even the wind soiling them. No matter how proud and hard they were, the wind making their faces run with tears. That was existence, and why didn't it roar and wrench itself apart like the storm it must be, if so much of existence is all that bitterness and fear? Even now, thinking of the man who called himself her husband, what if he turned away from her? It would be nothing. What if the child was no child? There would be an evening and a morning. The quiet of the world was terrible to her, like mockery. She had hoped to put an end to these thoughts, but they returned to her, and she returned to them.

Beautifully written. Words from a novel that urge truth into our lives. Couplings of ideas, sentences that want to be read out loud, and returned to. Beautifully written. When I say that phrase, this is what I mean.

And you?

Library Journal reviews LOVE (and new upcoming events)

I am grateful today for the lovely Library Journal review of LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair, which so aptly captures the spirit of the book (and our city). Thanks to Gary Kramer for sending it my way.

Kephart, Beth. Love: A Philadelphia Affair. Temple Univ. 2015. 140p. photos. ISBN 9781439913154. $24.50. TRAV
philadelphia101615The tourism promotion motto of the Philadelphia region is “the place that loves you back.” This aptly named collection based on Philadelphia Inquirer columns is a resident’s love song to the city and its suburbs. Kephart has written on the region before in Flow, her wonderful book on Philadelphia’s iconic Schuykill River. Here she waxes poetic about some of the city’s famous landmarks, such as Reading Terminal Market and 30th Street Station. The author also conjures up the less-well-known Woodlands Cemetery and the suburb of Glenside. She particularizes places on specific dates with specific sunlight. This isn’t a tourist’s book in the sense that a visitor is going to find practical information about where to go. Rather it is an evocation of what Philadelphia is like through the pen of a gifted writer. So the native will find memories stirred and the tourist will be stimulated to visit. It is also somewhat autobiographical. For example, the author writes about Locust Walk at the heart of the University of Pennsylvania based on her college years.

Verdict Kephart has written in many genres, from young adult fiction to poetry; here she adds another excellent nonfiction book for the general reader. Recommended.—David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

I share this review along with a list of upcoming events. No two are the same. Most are open to the public. 

This coming Tuesday night, for example, I'll be at Radnor Memorial Library sharing dozens of photographs of Devon, Wayne, Valley Forge National Park, Ardmore, and the surrounding areas—and talking about the passions that have erupted in me (gardening, dance, pottery, horses), thanks to my living right here. 

Next Saturday I'll be at BookFest @ Bank Street in NYC, talking about narrative risk on a glorious panel moderated by Kirkus's Vicky Smith. I'll be back here on Sunday, to sign books at Main Point Books in Bryn Mawr.

On November 5, I'll be at the Ambler Theater, reflecting on Philadelphia as an artistic canvas, as part of the Upper Dublin/Wissahickon Valley Public Library's second-annual "Let's Discuss It" program. 

On November 7, I'll be down on the Penn campus, interviewing Buzz Bissinger, for Penn's Homecoming. 

And then a memoir workshop at Book Garden in Frenchtown, NJ, talks in area schools, the November Book Club Happy Hour in Harleysville (sign up soon), and a series of in-store signings to close out the year.

I hope to see you along the way.

October 20, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Radnor Memorial Library
A Celebration of One Thing Stolen
and Love: A Philadelphia Affair
114 W. Wayne Avenue
Wayne, PA 19087
Details here.
(open to public)

October 21, 2015
The Cultural Series at Kennedy House
1901 JFK Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA
(private event)

October 24, 2015
Panelist
BookFest @ Bank Street
Bank Street College of Education
610 West 112th Street
New York, NY 
Details here.
(registration required)

October 25, 2015, 4 p.m.
Love: A Philadelphia Affair signing
Main Point Books
1041 W. Lancaster Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA
(open to public)

November 1, 2015, 2:00 PM
LOVE and FLOW
Women for Greater Philadelphia
Laurel Hill Mansion
Philadelphia, PA
(private event)

November 5, 2015, 7:30 PM
LOVE is the Upper Dublin/Wissahickon Valley Library 
Let's Discuss It Pick. 
Ambler Theater. 
Details here.

November 7, 2015, 4 PM
Homecoming Weekend/Penn
Penn alum (and students), come join Kelly Writers House and me as we host Buzz Bissinger. Buzz and I will be talking about the art of teaching and about his new preface to his famed Friday Night Lights.Kelly Writers House | 3805 Locust Walk | Arts Café
RSVP: whhomecoming@writing.upenn.edu or call (215) 746-poem

November 15, 2015
Memoir Workshop
In-store reception
The Rat
Organized by The Book Garden
Frenchtown, NJ
Details here. (registration required)

November 16, 2015
LOVE, TRUTH, and GOING OVER
Frenchtown, NJ-area high schools
(private events)

November 19, 2015, 7 PM
November Book Club Happy Hour
Harleysville Book Store
Harleysville, PA
Details here.
 
December 3, 2015, 7 PM
LOVE signing
Chester County Books
West Chester, PA
(open to public)

December 5, 2015, noon
LOVE signing
Barnes and Noble
Devon, PA
(open to public)

December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes & Noble signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA
Germantown, PA

March 1, 2016, 6:00 PM
Beltran Family Teaching Award Event
Featuring A.S. King, Margo Rabb, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto,
Penn students, and moi
Kelly Writers House
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
(open to public)

April 16, 2016
Little Flower Teen Writing Festival
Keynote Speaker
Little Flower Catholic High School for Teens
Philadelphia, PA

May 22, 2016
Open Book Memoir Retreat, with Daniel TordayWhitpain Farm
Blue Bell, PA
Details here.

Dana Reinhardt, on This Is the Story of You

“A powerful, gorgeous novel that, like the storm itself, sneaks up on you, breaks hearts and bones, turns the world upside down, and leaves light and hope among its ruins.” 

–Dana Reinhardt, award winning author of The Things A Brother Knows and We Are the Goldens


(with gratitude toward a writer whose work and whole spirit I adore)

the politics of kindness, on "The Voice," in HuffPo

I've been thinking a lot lately about kindness and love and about an assumption some make that those who love hard think less, or think less effectively, than those who stand at the ready with a presumptive, lambasting, one-upping criticism.

I spoke a little about this at the Free Library of Philadelphia launch of Love: A Philadelphia Affair. Later, Laurel Garver asked if I might expand on those thoughts. I decided to do that through the vehicle of "The Voice," in a HuffPo post.

It can be found here.

on learning to live with less

I have never been interested in living large. I'm a one-credit-card, pay-off-the-mortgage, don't-buy-the-new-car-until-the-old-one-won't-budge, bake-your-own-desserts, use-points-to-travel kind of person. We have a two-bedroom house, because that is all we needed (when our son was home). I wear clothes from fifteen years ago and shoes until the soles fall off.

Still, over the past many months, I've had a few lessons to learn about further right sizing my life. I've had to make decisions. Stepping away from dance (which I loved), using fewer herbs and fancy kitchen things, keeping my book library in relative stasis (an admitted sadness), staying in more often, rarely having wine with dinner. I've bought fewer gifts than is my style. Traveled fewer miles. Focused on family and next chapters. Thought about a different future.

I've had to get creative, is what I'm saying, and I have discovered this: Less and less is a form of freer and more free. With fewer acquisitions of things I once thought I needed, the tiny house is a roomier house. Each considered meal is a new kind of triumph. The little luxuries are savored as enormous ones. When we do go out, it's a night to remember. The outfits I come up with are (shall I say this?) inspired. The gifts I give are, increasingly, the gifts I make, and I think that elevates them with meaning.

The other day, talking with a friend I'll name E., I learned a little more about her history. She was fabulously wealthy and fabulously feted; she flew across the seas to get her hair done. And then something happened, and then something else happened, and today her luxuries all revolve around clay and dusty smocks and adorable shoes, and she says, to herself, to others, "I've never been happier."

I believe her.

LOVE is chosen as the 2015 Let's Discuss It book by Upper Dublin and Wissahickon Valley Public Libraries

... and we're going to have a lot of fun talking about Philadelphia as an artistic canvas on November 5 at the Ambler Theater. We've invited Temple University student filmmakers to join us, and we're inviting the community (you) to share your memories of Philadelphia, which we'll stitch together in a virtual storytelling quilt. (Enlarge the poster above, and you'll see how you can share your stories.) I'll be reading as well from Love: A Philadelphia Affair.

I hope you'll join us. I've heard only good things about last year's event, which featured Matthew Quick.

Deep thanks to Lauren Smyth and Cheri Fiory, who reached out to me with this extraordinary invitation, and to Kristine Weatherston of Temple University's film department, who gamely responded to my request for work from her students. Kristine and some of her students have also agreed to join us that evening.

Finally, thank you to the Kiwanis Club of Ambler.

LOVE in Philadelphia Style

The Fall Men's Issue(with thanks)

"the poetry under the prose": on reading Ivan Doig's final novel

I took a single book with me to Luray, VA—Ivan Doig's gloriously affective Last Bus to Wisdom. It is Doig's sixteenth book, his final work of art, finished before his passing at the age of 75 this past April. It's about 1951 and a bus-trip taking boy, about ranchers and ranch hands, Kate Smith, but not that Kate Smith, a collection of autographs and experiences rendered permanently indelible.

Though Doig had been ill while he wrote this (and other) books, he never lost his patience. He tells this tale about a red-headed Tall Tale Teller as if he had all the time in the world. He puts his hero, Donal, on a bus, has him trail away from his beloved Gram, and allows him to anticipate the world with little ironical distance:

What a haze of thoughts came over me like that as memory went back and forth, dipping and accelerating like some speedometer keeping up with a hilly road. Passing by familiar sights with everything known ahead, maybe too much of a youngster to put the right words to the sensation but old enough to feel it in every part, I can only say I was meeting myself coming and going, my shifting life until then intersecting with the onrushing days ahead.

Not long ago, on a writing panel, a fellow panelist turned toward me and (with greatest emotion) spoke of those novelists (I felt the glare) who foolishly care so much about sentences. Despite the intensity of her argument, I still can't agree that plot is all a story needs. After I finished reading Doig, whose every sentence is a pleasure, I needed to spend some more time with him, this man who made his language sing.

And so I visited his web site, and I watched the video, and I read the reflections on him, and then I came to this: his thoughts about the poetry inside prose. I was grateful for the sentiments I found there:

To me, language—the substance on the page, that poetry under the prose—is the ultimate 'region,' the true home, for a writer.... If I have any creed that I wish you as readers, necessary accomplices in this flirtatious ceremony of writing and reading, will take with you from my pages, it'd be this belief of mine that writers of caliber can ground their work in specific land and lingo and yet be writing of that larger country: life.

This Angel on My Chest/Leslie Pietrzyk: thoughts in New York Journal of Books

Leslie Pietrzyk has written a stunning book of fiction that, based in part on her own loss of a young husband, spirals toward emotive, shattering truth. I've written of it here, in New York Journal of Books.

a memoir workshop in Frenchtown, at the Book Garden

I spent my birthday in Frenchtown, NJ, this past April and fell so hard for the place that I wrote about it in the Philadelphia Inquirer . Which led to an unexpected email from Caroline, an owner of the town's indie, the Book Garden, inviting me to return to this river town this November. I'll be conducting a memoir workshop and meeting with students in area schools. The memoir workshop, described above, will be held November 15 from 1 to 4 PM at The National Hotel. It has limited space, and if you are interested, I encourage you to sign up soon.

(For those unfamiliar with my memoir teaching and ideas, I share a link here to Handling the Truth, my book about the making of memoir.)

A link to the page can be found here.