Gail Gauthier's Blog: Gail Gauthier Reads, page 3

Tales of Two Vermonts

I don't know if the conventional media picture of Vermont truly reflects the impact on the state of the arrival of new people in the '60s and '70s. While that kind of thing probably happened in many remotish areas starting in the second part of the twentieth century, two books I read during my retreat week in Vermont definitely reflect the two worlds that now exist in that particular place.

Vermont 1. Ruby in the Sky

At an appearance in December, author Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo said that her book Ruby in the Sky is set in Vermont because her family spent vacations there when she was a child. I believe she named a central part of the state, but I can't swear to it. It wasn't an area I connect with the arty, bohemian but comfortable lifestyle I was seeing described in Vermont Life a few years ago. And you don't see arty, bohemian Vermont in her book.

Instead, you see a more hardscrabble life with a mother and daughter moving back to mom's hometown after they've struggled elsewhere. Several elsewheres. They're back in Vermont because young Ruby Moon Hayes' mom has a cousin there who has offered help. But the kind of help she can offer is a house heated with wood and outdoor winter clothes purchased at a store called Family Thrift. Ms. Hayes' options for work are a diner where female employees put up with crap from the owner because they have to have jobs and a small market. When Ruby's mother gets into legal trouble with her boss, she has to rely on a public defender. How small is this town? The mayor hangs at the diner.

This is similar to the Vermont world I knew growing up. I had family members who heated with wood for years. (They didn't have running water for a long time, either.) Isolation. Limited job opportunities. Wandering around outside in the woods after school by yourself. (Though we didn't have neighbors living in sheds, as Ruby does.) The mother moving from place to place in Ruby in the Sky, never settling, never able to make a go of it anywhere, needing to come home to family? Yeah, I've heard of that kind of thing, too.

This is a Vermont I don't recall seeing in children's books. It's a world view that's probably familiar to readers from other rural, less than affluent places, too.

You know what Ferruolo didn't include in her story? Grizzled old farmers saying "ayeah," which I did see in a children's book a few years ago. I really, really appreciated that. Yes, I grew up saying "ayeah," myself, but I got tired of reading and hearing the stereotype fast.

Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo has another book coming out...ah, next week, actually. A Galaxy of Stars.

Vermont 2. The Vanishing Stair

There are also no grizzled old farmers saying "ayeah" in The Vanishing Stair, Maureen Johnson's sequel toTruly Devious, which I liked when I read it last year. In this case, it's an easy cliche to avoid because Johnson is dealing with a different Vermont. Her characters are almost all nonVermonters, students who have come to a private Vermont school. These are young people of the arty, bohemian variety variety I mentioned before: writers, YouTube stars, artists, and musicians. You have the teacher who dresses in "expensive geek chic." None of these people have to shop at Family Thrift as Ruby's family does. This book also takes readers on a side trip into the academic Burlington to meet with a University of Vermont professor.

This is a real Vermont, too, one I'm familiar with but was less a part of. (Well, I did graduate from UVM. And if memory serves me, I lived on Pearl Street in Burlington, which Johnson mentions, my first year out of school. Burlington was very, very cool then.) As different as the Truly Devious/Vanishing Stair world is from Ruby in the Sky's, it is still very rooted in reality. How rooted? The Truly Devious books are set in a remote private school, established in the 1930s by a wealthy New York City resident. I don't know how many private schools were started in Vermont in that era, but I grew up not far from Lake Bomoseen where some of the Algonquin Round Table hung in the summers in the era Johnson's school began. Decades later, my mother, who I doubt knew who Alexander Woollcott and Dorothy Parker were (I barely know who Woollcott was), spoke of the writers on Lake Bomoseen. People from New York City were coming to Vermont back then and leaving a mark. So even Maureen Johnson's historical setting is believable.

Oh, and in case any readers think the yurt that appears in Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair is just a little too...I don't know...over the top? Wondering what one of those things is doing in Vermont? I was in one in Vermont just a couple of weeks ago! The place where we go for retreat has had one for several years. I find it very intimidating. I go inside to put on my snowshoes, but I'm always afraid someone is going to throw me out, because maybe snowshoes aren't supposed to be in there. I would never make it in The Vanishing Stair world.

The next book in the Truly Devious serial, The Hand on the Wall, was published last week.

They Are Both Real

So, seriously, I'm telling you, these two very different settings are both the real Vermont these days.

Think of "Buffy" As YA And "Angel" As Adult

Earlier this month, Mary Elizabeth Williams argued in20 Years on, "Angel" Has Aged Better Than "Buffy" at Salon that not only has Angel, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, spinoff, aged better, it is the better show. Those of you who know what I'm talking about will have some strong opinions about that, I'm sure.

Quite apart from all that, Williams says something in her article that made me think of the difference between YA and adult literature. Buffy, she says, "famously made real the universal truth that high school is hell" while Angel is a "workplace TV show."

Theme is supposed to be a big factor in identifying YA as YA. Thematically Buffy is about young people finding a place in society. Angel, on the other hand, is thematically about adults living in that place in society. It's not just that Buffy is set in a high school and Angel is set in an office that makes one show YA-like and the other adult. It's what Buffy and Angel do in those settings.

"Growing up is a finite process," Williams concludes. "Adulting goes on forever."

I May Be Too Into Used Book Sales

I became interested in library used book sales a few years back while my mother was a resident in a skilled nursing facility. I would go to these sales to keep her in Nora Roberts' books. Also Danielle Steele...Fern Michaels...Maeve Binchey...She was a fan of a whole slew of woman writers. I kept lists of the titles she'd read for each author on my cell phone so that when I hit these sales, I didn't buy duplicates. I'd bring my finds in when I visited her, and we'd go through them. I'd leave some, keep the rest of the stash in bags and boxes in my laundry room until she needed more.

What I found happening while I was at these sales was that I'd also buy for myself, because books would jump off the tables at me. In particular, I liked a certain kind of edgy, sightly off center adult fiction. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, for example. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy for another.

I've been hearing for years about a library used book sale in a town on the "other side of the river," as we say here in central Connecticut. It's so large, they can't hold it in the library; they have to move everything to the local high school gym. The sale last two days, and legend says that on Saturday morning you have to stand in line outdoors to get in. It's held in September, a time when we're usually traveling. We're home this month, though, so I decided to take this opportunity to go to the sale Saturday.

I'm Getting Kind Of Picky

This sale is in a town an hour away from me, which is a way to go for used books. I have family members who live there, though, so it doesn't seem that far to me. I'd been in town just two days before.

Still, I'd been on the road for about a half an hour Saturday when I suddenly thought, what if I'm disappointed? I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks. What if the sale wasn't that great?

I have to say, even though the number of books offered was as huge as I'd heard, I was sort of underwhelmed. I arrived around two in the afternoon, because I'd been warned on Facebook that Saturday morning is a mob scene, so I didn't have to wait in line. But when I arrived, what I was first confronted with were several tables of stacks of new bestsellers. Piles of the same titles. I've seen new books like these at other library book sales and was told by a source at one of them that someone involved with that library had a connection with a chain bookstore, and the books came from there. Someone at yesterday's book sale must have had a great connection with a chain store or a warehouse or something. These books were being offered for either two or five dollars. Nice prices.

To me, though, it was like I was hitting a Barnes & Noble instead of a used book sale. I'm not one of those people who has an issue with B&N. B&N placed a decent sized prepublication order for one of my books. Also, I have plans for the B&N gift card burning a hole in my pocket. But, still, if I'd wanted to go to B&N Saturday, I would have gone to B&N.

While going through the paperbacks further back in the room, I noticed a lot of books that you'd kind of expect to find. Also, books that I'd read. And, remember how I said I used to go to these things specifically for Nora Roberts? I didn't need to look for Nora Roberts yesterday, but old habits die hard. I only found a couple of boxes of them. I've been to smaller sales at libraries in smaller towns and found whole tables of Nora and her kindred authors. What was that about?

My husband pointed out later that I couldn't have looked at every book in this room. That's true. But as I said to him and said earlier in this post, the point of going to these sales is to buy books that jump off the tables at me. So I don't have to look at everything.

So What Did Jump Off The Table At You, Gail?

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, because it deals with a situation I've been thinking about writing about. Reading this might make me think twice about that.

>b>The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman, because I read another book by the author, which I liked.

Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo, because I'm interested in reading about Buddhism, but only if it's easy.

Iceland's Bell by Halldor Laxness, because I just finished watching two seasons of an Icelandic television show. In Icelandic with subtitles. I'm committed.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, because while it's science fiction I've never heard of, it's supposed to be "exciting and adventurous."

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, because I read an article about Lahiri writing a book in Italian, a third language for her. Damn. It wasn't this book, but still, I showed some respect and bought another one of her books.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, because it's famous. Seriously, I think this book is about two people. That's it. What I've heard is that it's the first in a famous series by a famous Italian author. Hey, it jumped off the table at me.

What Did This Set You Back, Gail?

Okay, so I read the sign on the wall about the pricing of the book. I read it a couple of times. I thought I was going to pay at least a buck seventy-five for each of these books, maybe more. I was charged seventy-five cents a piece for a total of five-dollars and twenty-five cents for seven books. I hope those nice cashiers didn't undercharge me. I feel as if I know them, because it turns out they've seen the same Icelandic TV show I saw.

This place had five cashier stations set up. They had tables for, I think, three more. For when things got really busy.

I ended up spending a lovely hour there, underwhelmed or not, enjoyed some Cheerios and chocolate chips in the car afterwards, and didn't hit any traffic in Hartford going either way. A good Saturday afternoon.

It Took Decades, But I Finished It!

La Pratique Du Francais Parle by Leoon-Francois Hoffmann is a 46-year-old book that is listed here at Goodreads. I just happen to be the only person who has ever indicated she's read it.

I bought La Pratique back when I was in college. I wasn't taking French, but had ambitions to learn it on my own. The book might as well have been written in a foreign language, as far as I was concerned. Which, of course, it was. A language I couldn't speak or read.

Many years later, I still couldn't speak or read French, and I still had La Pratique. I decide, once again, that I'm going to learn French. I pull La Pratique out again, it is still beyond me, but I do continue...off and on...with my studies. For instance, I did all the reading for my son's high school French classes. Yes, I was able to read on a French 2 level. French 3...big jump up. That was hard.

Not as hard as La Pratique, though.

Well, I was clearing out the office earlier this year, and tossed some old French books. Not La Pratique, though, because I realized I'd now reached a point in my French learning that enabled me to make some headway with it. Especially, if I didn't drive myself nuts trying to get the meaning of every word or worrying about retaining everything.

I managed to finish the book, because I carried it in my purse. For months. I read it mainly on car trips while someone else was driving, but...

Hurray, I finished it!

This is a case where just having read something on every page was the accomplishment, not having some life altering experience with the reading. Je suis heureux.

Magical Old People

Recently, I finished reading a realistic middle grade novel in which an old woman appears way too conveniently in order to help our heroine with a far-fetched situation. She's what I think of as a magical old person, a secondary character in a children's book who appears for the sole purpose of helping the main character and providing life lessons. In my experience, most magical old people die by the end of the story, as the one in the book I just read did. Because, you know, that's the very best life lesson.

Well-read child readers must catch on to the fact that if you have an old person in a book directed toward them, dollars to doughnuts you're going to have a death. Old people are like dogs in kids' books.

I want to write a middle-grade novel with an old woman who's a bitch-on-wheels. Not only will she survive the story, she may blow something up.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.

I Have a Connection to Lad! The Dog! That Dog!

Last month I had lunch with my husband's second cousin once removed, who told us that his wife's uncle was... Albert Payson Terhune! The collie guy!

It's a good thing I was at Bertucci's today with these people, because my husband didn't have a clue who Cousin E was talking about. But I read Lad of Sunnybank back in the day, and it seems as if I had to have read more of his many collie books, since Terhune's name looms so large in my mind. Not that I can tell you much about Lad, except it was about a dog who was owned by a classy couple who lived in a classy house.

Cousin E. also told us that my husband's great-grandfather owned a Terhune collie, because Terhune was also a breeder. So I have a double connection to Lad.

In an article about a Terhune biography published in 1977, Albin Krebs called Albert Payson Terhune "The creator of some of the most popular books for young people ever published in this country." In 2015, Bud Boccone, writing for the American Kennel Club called him, "One of the most influential American novelists of all time."

People who like this guy, really like him.

In Lad as a Wasp In Dog's Clothing a child fan who reread some of Terhune's books, noticed some things that got by him when he was younger. In short, he found that "The analogy between thoroughbred dogs and human aristocrats is implicit in all Terhune's stories." To put it nicely. I actually read this article years ago and remember it.

I'm still excited because I'm kind of related to Lad by marriage.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content

Brazen Women for Women's History Month

I received a copy of Brazen, Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu at the Gauthier Christmas gift swap, which, last year, was an Icelandic book and chocolate swap. You know,
because Icelanders give books for Christmas Eve and then spend the evening reading and eating chocolate. Beats pajamas for Christmas, doesn't it? Women's History Month seems like a good time to post about it.

Brazen is graphic nonfiction, a collection of pieces on a wide array of women, some better known than others. I definitely liked it, though it raised a few questions for me.

The Questions

How should graphic nonfiction work? With graphic novels, the graphics carry plot and setting. Creative nonfiction may have plot elements, but not all nonfiction does. As a reader, what should I expect from graphic nonfiction?
Why is Brazen considered YA? The women covered are not necessarily teenagers and the material on them sometimes goes into old age. What is it about Brazen that makes it YA instead of adult graphic nonfiction that YAs can read the way they can read so many other types of adult nonfiction.?
And what is YA nonfiction, anyway? Many teenagers are ready for adult nonfiction and in terms of their schooling are probably expected to read it. What should writers writing YA nonfiction being doing that that they wouldn't do if they were writing nonfiction for adults?


No Answers

My quick and superficial hunt for answers to the above questions didn't provide me with much information. What I found tended to focus on what's available in YA nonfiction rather than what YA nonfiction is.

Kelly Jensen did an interesting piece atBook Riot a couple of years ago called Where's the Love for Nonfiction for Young Readers? She describes Quiet Power, a YA version of Susan Cain's Quiet, about introversion versus extroversion. I'd never heard of Quiet Power, though I've read Quiet. Quiet Power sounds significantly different, very directed toward YA readers. An example of YA nonfiction?

But a lot of writing on nonfiction for young readers gets murky because journalists often pool middle grade and YA readers together. So the differences in the audience and how writing for them should be done isn't considered or addressed.

It looks as if everything Brazen made me think about is just going to sort of fester in my mind. And, oddly, what it made me think about was writing, not women. A classic example of Gail totally missing the point.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.

Haunting of Hill House...Book And Series

I have just finished watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix...for the second time. I watched it once last fall, and then asked for the book for Christmas. I finished reading it (rereading, actually, since I'd read it in high school) the second week of January and watched the series again, looking for connections between the book and film. I'm not big on watching "reruns," certainly not so soon after watching something the first time. But Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House.

You all know how I feel about Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson has a horror writer reputation. Because of that, she doesn't get credit for things like the incredible elegance of her writing in The Haunting of Hill House. You can hear some of it in the TV series. Some of Steven's voice overs from his book are Jackson's actual words. While the series is very different from the book as far as action and characters are concerned, in terms of mood, it's very true to the original.

The series also picks up a multitude of bits and pieces from Jackson's book, working them into the weekly episodes that move back and forth through time, often from different characters points of view. Jackson fans like myself can have a glorious time looking for the connections.

Overlap Between Hill House The Book And Hill House The TV Series

The Dudleys are the only characters who appear, as is, in both the book and the series, though they have a very different story arc in each. Mr. Dudley, in particular, is quite different in terms of behavior.
The names of three of the major characters, Luke, Theo, and Eleanor/Nell come from the book. In the series, Eleanor's married name is Eleanor Vance, which is her name in the book. Though they are adults and unrelated in the book, they are described as beginning to feel like family. In the series, Luke, Theo, and Nell are siblings and appear as both children and adults.
Theo is sexually ambiguous in the book. She's a lesbian in the series.
Hugh Crain is the original builder of Hill House in the book. In the series, he is a major character, the father of Luke, Theo, and Nell. He is also some sort of contractor who has bought Hill House and is planning to flip it, giving him another connection to the builder Hugh Crain of the book.
In the series Luke, Theo, and Nell have a sister named Shirley, which is an obvious tribute to our Shirley Jackson. She is very much a caretaker in the book, the way an author is.
I have no idea where the name Steven, the last sibling in the series, comes from.
Rooms are referred to by colors in both the book and the series.
In the book, Theo and Nell are in a bedroom at night screaming because of the pounding around them. The child Theo and Shirley in the series have a similar scene. As adults they're together in Shirley's funeral parlor when more pounding occurs.
In the series there is a scene where Theo wakes up having been holding someone's hand, but she doesn't know whose. A similar thing happened to either Theo or Nell in the book.
A cup of stars is referred to in both the series and the book.
In the book, Nell runs up a spiral staircase where someone in the past had killed herself. In the TV show, Nell hangs herself near a spiral staircase. That spiral staircase shows up a lot in the last episode.
A statue of a father and child appears in the book. There are statues turning up all the time in the series.
Eleanor dances in both the book and series.
There's a cold spot in both book and series.
A mystery dog runs through the house in both the book and series.
In the book, Nell experiences a rain of stones when she was young, which is why she is invited to Hill House. She has experienced a supernatural event. In the series, the mother Olivia experienced it when she was young. It's made clear throughout the series that she has some kind of supernatural thing going on, something the house evidently can plug into.
"Journeys end in lovers meeting" Liv says to Hugh in the last episode of the series. She's quoting Shakespeare. The line appears often in the book.
"I am home. I am home." Yup. Appears both places.
The series ends with Steven reading a line from his book, which also happens to be the last line from Shirley Jackson's book. But not quite. Jackson's line ends "and whatever walked there, walked alone." Steven's line ends "and whatever walked there, walked together." Kind of significant, all things considered.

I am sure this is not an exhaustive list. I only watched the series twice, after all.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.

An Author Does Store Hour

Human children and animal babies all go to sleep. That's the entry point that makes by Diane Ohanesian with illustrations by Emily Bornoff work. Each section involves both some light factual material with the "snuggle down deep" repetition. The book combines nature, poetry, and...sleeping. It's a lovely book with an ecological thread.

The Event

This past Saturday morning Diane Ohanesian did what could be called a master class in how to do an author story hour in a bookstore. She had an audience of close to a dozen kids from around two-years-old to maybe six or seven. Yes, she brought cookies, which made a much nicer impression than I would have expected.

What was really impressive, though, was the way she got control of her group with the first words she spoke. In a whisper, she asked her audience to do something and they did it. She kept control with a terrific board kids could interact with as she was reading. She finished up with a simple art project that went over extremely well, probably because of the great box of supplies she brought with her. She had brand new packages of paper!

Watching Diane illustrated why new writers should take advantage of opportunities to see writers experienced with speaking and dealing with the public.

The Venue

Diane read at the new River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury, Connecticut. It's a nook and cranny independent bookstore, the kind where browsers can get a sense of the intellect curating the offerings. I "have a bookstore" in Stowe, Vermont I go into once a year and walk around until something jumps off the shelf and tells me to take it home. River Bend
could be that kind of place.

Of course, today I bought Snuggle Down Deep.

River Bend is hosting writers and other literary events.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content

So What Do YOU Do With Found Time

This is what happened, folks. Last Friday night my plans for Sunday changed. A family event was moved to the end of the month. In the meantime, Sunday was free. That changed what happened Saturday afternoon, too. Because the cooking I was planning to squeeze in to Saturday afternoon after a morning elder care visit could be moved to Sunday. You know, Sunday, when I had nothing. Do the math. I suddenly had a day and a half to do what I had originally planned to squeeze into a half a day.

That's like...that's like having forever.

So when I stopped at the library after leaving the nursing home Saturday, instead of just dropping off some books, I stayed. For over an hour. I kept thinking, I can do this. I can stay as long as I want. Because I've got tomorrow.

The Cragin Library, where I was that day, has been one of my library haunts for years. I thought it was okay, but I was so wrong. You know how journalists keep saying that Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton stun because of something they're wearing that half the time is just so-so? Yeah, yesterday, the Cragin Library stunned.

In front of the New Fiction shelves in their Adult Department they have a bench. Like the benches you see in museums in front of a work of art. Except the works of art in this library are books. You can make yourself comfortable while you're going over a couple of hundred new books. I love that. I have sat on that bench. Not last Saturday, though. Last Saturday, I had a different kind of experience there.

Last Saturday, it was as if that library knew my interests.

First off, I picked up three books from the Young Adult department, one of them being My Life in Pink & Green by Lisa Greenwald. I had heard of that and brought it home because it appears to have an environmental thread.

Then I went wandering around the New Adult Nonfiction (where there isn't a bench) and came upon a book on minimalism that, again, I had heard about a few months back. Next I saw a book of essays by someone I'd never heard of, but they were supposed to be amusing. And I write essays! What showed up next but a book on writing flash fiction that looked pretty good. Guess what...I write flash fiction, too.

Then I go down to the Children's Department and pick up a couple of things including Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say. Now that I'm going to try to use for a speech therapy project I'm working on with an elder.

I finished up at Cragin's used book sale, where I got three books, one of them being Brave Companion's: Portraits in History by David McCullough, because I'd really like to read more history. Some history.

It was an amazing library visit, just amazing. I came home drunk on books, unable to decide what to start with. I was still overwhelmed on Sunday, and after cooking for a few hours, I spent another couple of hours that afternoon reading old newspapers rather than decide where to begin with my library treasure. I have an embarrassment of riches here.

This past weekend was a big one in Connecticut for children's lit activities. I could have used some of my found time to head out to an event. I feel a tiny bit guilty about that. But, in reality, I suspect nothing I could have done would have been as terrific as that library trip.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content