Delia Sherman's Blog, page 7

FREEDOM MAZE chapter

The wonderful Erin Underwood has posted the first chapters of many fine novels, including Beth Bernobich's The Fox and the Phoenix and Cherie Priest's Hellbent and Lev Grossman's The Magician King and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Including The Freedom Maze.  Check it out.  TFM is a ways down the page, with a lovely synopsis and the cover and all the front matter from the book.
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Sadly, there's no order button.  Even more sadly, my website doesn't have one either (working on it--hand on my heart).  If you're interested, you can preorder (hardcover or ebook) at Small Beer Press or (hardcover only) at Amazon.

The book itself is coming out November 15, so there will be contests and giveaways and launch news and deleted chapters and suchlike.

I really want this book to do well, not only because it's mine and it's a book of the heart and I've been working on it longer than forever, but because Small Beer Press took a chance on it when nobody else would.  Being small means you have to take risks, publish books the big boys won't, even though running a small press is a hard (and expensive) row to hoe and when you lose your shirt, well, it's your actual shirt you're losing.  I'd love Freedom Maze to do well for Big Mouth House, put them even more firmly on the map and in the black, allow them to buy more books The Marketing Department doesn't know how to sell, and generally keep the likes of Kathe Koja and Geoff Ryman and Karen Joy Fowler and Ted Chiang in print and out there for the world to read.

Rosh Hashana Thoughts: On Community

We went to services today.  We don't have a regular synagogue we go to, partly because we don't live a regular life, partly because we hate to commit, partly because the places where Ellen feels socially comfortable are a little too high-octane for my Hebrew-less, unconverted state.  Come the High Holidays, if we (for "we" in this context, read "Ellen") think about it in time to get tickets, we go somewhere we have friends, somewhere close.  If we don't, then we creep around in the backs of places after the service has started, or cadge a ticket to the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ), the Reconstructionist schul Ellen's Uncle Ron belongs to.

Which is what we did this year. 

It's a lovely space, on 86th Street a block from Central Park.  I've been there fairly often.  It was where Ron stood up with me during the Mourner's Kaddish after my father died.  One of his friends always asks us to his break-fast, even though we're not members.  The music is good, the cantor celestial, the rabbi a good man, if not the world's most inspiring speaker.  The demographic is varied:  retirees and young families and middle-aged couples--not a lot of young singles, at least not at the services we've been to.  Smart people.  Good people, who clearly care about their community.  Today, three of them stood up in front of the congregation, at the rabbi's request, to talk about community.  They were all eloquent and thoughtful and moving, but my favorite was a social psychologist, the fourth generation of her family to belong to SAJ.  She was an excellent (if rather academic) speaker, and I can't begin to do her argument justice, but this is what I remember and wanted to share with you.

She talked about community in terms of social psychology, which is (and I quote from a website I found because I want to get it right) "the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others."  Those of us sitting in schul, listening to her, were an actual community.  Imagined community, she said, was the thing that bound the members of the congregation together when they weren't in schul. Implied community was what let any Jew who wanted to pray feel at home in any Jewish community they went to.

I can imagine many things, but I can't imagine what that must feel like.  I am not, by temperament, a joiner.  My identity is more what I do than what I am.  Actual community--physical gatherings inspired by a common interest--is something I can leave or take (except Wiscon and WFC).  What I do need, and have, is lots of imagined community--people living and dead whose influence on my life is active and ongoing even in their absence.  Many of them are online, on LJ and Facebook.  Many of them have never heard of LJ.  Many of them do not know each other, which means that this loose conglomeration of people I know and trust is not an implied community:  while I would (and have) put any of them up when they come to New York, or cook them a meal if they needed one, and know they'd do the same for me should occasion arise, it's not a given that they would do those things for each other. 

And where am I going with this?  Blessed if I know, although I thought I did when I started writing.  I guess I can understand better, given the pattern of my friendships, why it's hard for me to feel comfortable in a congregation.  Perhaps it even sheds light on why I haven't converted.  I like my far-flung, loosely-knit, idiosyncratic imagined community.  It allows me to be on the outside and the inside at the same time, to engage when I can and observe when I want to, to be responsible for and to individuals I like and not to a social construct.  But it does leave me feeling a little alienated when we go to services, no matter where.

Great Art, Art, Verse

1.  Great Art:  Peter Breughel the Elder's "The Procession to Calvary." 

It's one of those magical paintings that erase time and space and physics to show us hard truths:  that religion can destroy divinity, that the status quo never tires of killing anybody that challenges it, that humanity endures.

2.  Art:  The Mill and the Cross.

A film by Lech Majewsk, based on the above-mentioned "Procession to Calvary."  The narrative, insofar as it has one, concerns the Spanish Inquisition, the commission of the painting, Breughel's composition, and the renactment of the crucifixion in the context of the execution of a traitor and a heretic.  There is very little dialogue, and no connected story.  Just snippets of painting and peasants selling cows, scrubbing floors, dancing, children playing, crows pecking out the eyes of a heretic tied to a wheel.  It is gorgeous to look at and its slow unfolding gives you plenty of time to think about life, death, morality, art, eternity.  Also about how Michael York (he's Breughel's patron) is just as compelling to look at in his old age as he was as a pretty young thing.  Charlotte Rampling plays the woman whose idealist, reforming son is exectued, was executed, will always be executed while God looks down from the cruciform wings of his mill whose wheel below grinds slow but exceedingly fine

3.  Verse:  Stone Telling,

A wonderful on-line poetry journal, in which I have a poem.  It's called "Fathers," and in it, I try to figure out where and what some famous fairytale dads were doing and thinking while their second wives battled it out with their children.  I can't say it was fun to write, but it certainly illuminated some things I didn't know I thought.  So did the interview Julia Rios conducted with us.  Many and humble thanks to shweta_narayan and rose_lemberg for allowing me to be part of all this.

Oh, Internets!

Does anybody out there remember who took the photograph of two Victorian women looking coy and affectionate that was on the cover of the first edition of Lillian Federman's Surpassing the Love of Men?  I'm feeling the need for a lady-friendly icon of a Victorianishe nature.

Other suggestions are also welcome.

A New Market!

In my mail this morning was a very rare bird indeed:  a call for submissions from a publisher, looking for specfic manuscripts with an emphasis on diversity.

I reproduce it in full for your reading pleasure.

----------------------------
Call for Submissions

Tu Books publishes speculative fiction for children and young adults  
featuring diverse characters and settings. Our focus is on well-told,  
exciting, adventurous fantasy, science fiction, and mystery novels  
featuring people of color set in worlds inspired by non-Western  
folklore or culture. We welcome Western settings if the main  
character is a person of color.

We are looking specifically for stories for both middle grade (ages  
8-12) and young adult (ages 12-18) readers. (We are not looking for  
picture books, chapter books, or short stories. Please do not send  
submissions in these formats.)

For more information on how to submit, please see our submission  
guidelines at http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu_submiss.... We are  
not accepting unagented email submissions at this time.

What we're particularly interested in seeing lately: Asian steampunk,  
any African culture, contemporary African-American stories, Latino/a  
stories, First Nations/Native American/Aboriginal fantasy or science  
fiction written by tribal members, original postapocalyptic worlds,  
historical fantasy or mystery set in a non-Western setting. Please  
note that while our focus remains on main characters that are people  
of color, we strongly welcome GLBTQ characters as well.

We look forward to reading your book!

----------------------------

I've checked out the Lee & Low Books website, and it looks fab.  Take a look for yourself.  If you've got a manuscript they might be interested in, give it a polish and send it to them.  In any case,  look at the books they've already published, and order them if they look at all interesting.  Because small presses can't be our future unless they sell enough books to justify publishing risky, edgy books.

Calling All Victorianists!

I need a recommendation for a good biography of Queen Victoria, for a story featuring Vicky from her girlhood through her wedding.  I'm reading what of her journals I can find on-line, but they all seem to start with her accession to the throne, and I know she kept a diary before that.  I'll need a touch of politics, too, since this puppy will be needing a plot.  There are SO MANY biographies out there, and I just don't have the time to go vetting them.  I'm particularly intrested in her education, her day-to-day life:  Scenes in the life of a Young Heiress to a Throne.

Yes, I have seen Young Victoria.  Yes, I think it's wonderful.  It helps a lot.  I just need more data.

First Freedom Maze Review!

I've been sitting on this news for a week, and very bouncy and secret-smile experience it has been.  But now I can tell, and am even bouncier.

Kirkus gave The Freedom Maze a starred review! 

Here it is:

It’s 1960, but on the decayed Fairchild sugar plantation in rural Louisiana, vestiges of a grimmer past remain—the old cottage, overgrown garden maze, relations between white and black races.

Stuck for the summer in the family ancestral home under the thumb of her cranky, imperious grandmother, Sophie, 13, makes a reckless wish that lands her in 1860, enslaved—by her own ancestors. Sophie’s fair skin and marked resemblance to the Fairchilds earn her “easy” employment in the big house and the resentment of her peers, whose loyalty she’ll need to survive. Plantation life for whites and blacks unfolds in compelling, often excruciating detail. A departure from Sherman’s light fantasy Changeling (2006), this is a powerfully unsettling, intertextual take on historical time-travel fantasy, especially Edward Eager’s Time Garden (1958), in which white children help a grateful enslaved family to freedom. Sophie’s problems aren’t that easily resolved: While acknowledging their shared kinship, her white ancestors refuse to see her as equally human. The framing of Sophie’s adventures within 1960 social realities prompts readers to consider what has changed since 1860, what has not—for Sophie and for readers half a century later—and at what cost.

Multilayered, compassionate and thought-provoking, a timely read on the sesquicentennial of America’s Civil War.

(Historical fantasy. 12 & up)

It's coming out November 15.  As soon as I get home, I'm going to start putting together a give-away for some of the (extremely rare) ARC's, and some ante-bellum treats I picked up in my research journeys in the South.  Stay tuned.  And if you know you want to read the book, please consider pre-ordering from Small Beer Press.

The Freedom Maze Cover

There's been a certain amount of action on the cover front of The Freedom Maze over the past few months: concepts, sketches, tweaks have flown back and forth between Gavin Grant of Big Mouth House (which is the children's division of Small Beer Press, for those of you who didn't know) in Northampton and me in New York.

Today as ever was, he sent me a cover design I can share with you. I am made of squee.



Isn't it beautiful?  It's the work of the wonderful Kathleen Jennings.  I can't imagine an image that would more perfectly reflect Sophie's curiosity (that's Sophie, peering into the maze) about the overgrown maze on her grandmother's property and her family's history and the "Good Old Days" before the War of Northern Aggression her mother's always talking about. It also indicates that this is an old-fashioned book--in tone and pacing, if not in content or approach. I'm very, very happy.

Coming to a store near you (the Retail Gods willing) November 15, 2011. Although, of course, you can preorder:  http://smallbeerpress.com/forthcoming/2011/03/02/the-freedom-maze/

ETA the link to Kathleen Jenning's gallery.  It's glorious stuff.  Do go look.

The Master Class

I shouldn't even be using my "La Loge" for this, since it isn't really going to be a review.  It can't be.  I'm too emotionally invested in the play to review it with anything like objectivity.  You see, it's about a teacher who feels passionately about what she's teaching, trying to convey that passion--not to mention the necessity for knowing something about the history and the context as well as the basic building-blocks of technique and craft--to students who don't know (or care) as much background as she thinks they should.  She also believes that everybody who wants to be an artist should suffer for their art as much as she did when she was young,  Not the men, so much:  they don't really need to learn the hard lessons about endurance and growing a thick skin and giving up huge, bleeding chunks of themselves to pursue their careers.  But the women, certainly.  She had to.  So will they.  It's best they be prepared.


I've been a student of such teachers.  It didn't do me  much good, either as an artist or a human being.  Because of this, I try very, very hard not to be that teacher.  And yet I found myself nodding when I heard Maria Callas (channelled through the expressive voice and intense presence of Tyne Daly) announcing that Art is Hard Work, and that singing an opera (or any other piece of dramatic vocal music) without understanding its words and context and history and psychology is simply a collection of beautiful notes without soul or meaning.  Which goes to show, I guess, that being a egoistic, insecure, emotional mess doesn't mean you can't be right about things.  And also that being right--or even being a world-famous genius--doesn't give you license to belittle, insult, mock, or dismiss someone who looks up to you and wants to learn from you.  


It is very much to Terrence McNally's credit that his play does equal justice to all facets of a more than usually complex personality. His Maria Callas is a fully-rounded character--pathetic, guarded, bitter, dedicated, cold, passionate, clueless, cruel, gracious, and as self-centered as a gyroscope.  I understand that Zoe Caldwell focused on the bitter, cruel, passionate aspects of La Divina.  Tyne Daly focuses on Callas as the walking wounded.  She plays a woman who cannot bear her own vulnerability, who is most comfortable with emotions mediated through music and art.  Every gesture of admiration or kindness from her accompanist, Manny (played with real compassion and patience by Jeremy Cohen) makes her freeze like a frightened rabbit, and either be dismissive or massively gracious or chilly.  Or all three.  She is great, she is brilliant, she is a sublime musician and interpreter of character and nuance.  She is also absolutely alone and emotionally isolated.  Not a nice woman, but a great one.


I'm glad to say that the real woman, Callas herself, was demonstrably nicer than McNally's character.  The July, the New York Times ran an article about the real master classes that Callas taught at Juilliard in 1971 and 1972.  It's well worth reading, but this is the part that struck me most:



At Juilliard she was frank and demanding but unfailingly patient and
encouraging. Above all, she was impressively precise in her technical
and interpretive critiques.


That's a description of a good teacher.  Probably not as entertaining on a Broadway stage as the sacred monster who I watched cleverly reducing students to quivering heaps of nerves last night, but a whole lot more useful, both to herself and to the art she served and loved all her life.  I can't hope to be as great a writer as she was a singer, but I can do my level best to be a frank, demanding, precise, patient, encouraging teacher. 


The play is running until September 4, and there are TDF tickets for it.  Go, if you can.  It's worth it for the music and the commentary on the arias alone.  I'll never listen to the Letter Scene from Verdi's Macbeth or the Antonio's opening aria from Tosca the same way again.

Follies

Stephen Sondheim's Follies is being revived, and Ellen got us and Nephew (in town for a couple of weeks to check out the possibility of Making It In The Big Apple) preview tix.  I didn't see the original, in 1971 (my parents weren't big on musicals, and I wasn't one to go to the theatre by myself.  I'm still not, if it comes to that.), and if it's been revived since, I was in Boston and didn't know about it. I have no idea what I would have made of it at 20.  At 60, I loved it.

The play itself is a mess.  The first act is a ghostly tribute to the stage extravaganzas and the great beauties of the first half of the 20th century, with aging actresses reproducing the roles of their past, haunted by the slender, impossibly gorgeous chorines and headliners they once were.  The second act (as frequently happens with Sondheim) is Something Completely Different--a kind of vaudeville rendition of two couples disintegrating, both individually and together.  I was a lot more interested in the first act (as frequently happens with Sondheim) than in the second.  Eleven (11!) wonderful older actresses strutted their undimmed stuff for a mesmerized audience while their gloriously costumed younger selves posed and pirouetted behind them.

Bernadette Peters and Jan Maxwell were the leads, with more songs than anybody else, but they didn't get the big show-stopping numbers.  Those went to Jane Houdyshell, last seen as Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest, and before that in Coraline, singing "Broadway Baby" and Elaine Paige singing "I'm Still Here" and Terri White hoofing and belting through "Who's That Woman," and, perhaps most touchingly, Rosalind Elias, who I remember hearing at the Met (Cherubino, I think) in the 60's, singing a sweetly old-fashioned number called "One More Kiss."

I was pretty much on the edge of tears the whole first act.  It was just so beautiful, so poignant, so expressive of the passing of time and what it does and does not take from you.  The beautiful, characterless chorines glittering restlessly in the background while the dumpy or over-thin, wrinkled or worked-on, utterly individual women they grew up to be sang their hearts out in the follow-spot.  The sadness and the triumph of lives lived for art or love or ambition.  Oh, yes, and there's a kind of plot, too, about two chorus girls who were best friends and the two boys who had courted and married them, circling each other with double entendres and vicious little verbal darts, which blossoms, at the end of the act, into full-blown psycho-drama.

The second act should have been the story of how the drama played itself out.  And on one level, it was.  We got to see couples coming together, parting, switching partners, switching back, exploring their past and their present emotions, coming at last to a typically Sondheimian ambiguous conclusion.  It was fine.  I really liked a couple of the songs, (the husbands really came into their own) and the staging was delicious.  I think I see what he was doing--moving from the relative naturalism of an objectively-observed reunion of old chorus girls to the theatrical artificiality of the subjectively-observed drama of four unhappy middle-aged married people--but in the event, the emotional temperature change from delicate, nuanced nostalgia to emotionally violent satire, gave me emotional whiplash.

Still and all.  The music!  The actors!  The production!  The music!  The costumes!  The direction!  THE MUSIC!  Go while it's in previews if you can--I'm betting there won't be any cheap tickets after the reviews come out.