Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 17
June 22, 2014
The day the kids came back to say thanks
An era came to an end here in Lincoln, Vermont this past Monday morning: Alice Leeds and Donna Woods dismissed their fifth and sixth graders for the last time ever. The pair has been teaching the small elementary school’s two combined fifth- and sixth-grade classes for roughly a decade and a half together. . .and now they are retiring together.
And while there is so much I could write about the two of them – beginning, for instance, with the profound impact they had on my wife’s and my daughter when she was ten and eleven years old – I think a moment in time the week before last speaks volumes.
It was Monday, June 9, just after one-thirty. Alice and Donna were walking their 30 students back inside after a fire drill. The school principal, Tory Riley, said she needed a minute to talk to the kids, and sent the two teachers on ahead to their classrooms. And there Alice and Donna found waiting for them 30 different students: Alumni between the ages of 12 and 27. There were the kids they had taught in some cases years ago, now parents themselves, sitting often in the exact same seats in which they had sat when they were honing their math skills. Or learning about migrant workers. Or reading Shakespeare. (Every other year, the combined fifth and sixth grade class performs one of the Bard’s plays, and – trust me – you have not really seen Shakespeare until you have seen “The Tempest” performed by ten and eleven-year-olds.)
“My first thought,” Donna told me when I asked her what she felt when she walked back into her classroom, “was that there were giants sitting in my students’ seats. After that, I was just trying not to cry.” Those “giants” were former students such as Adrienne Lueders-Dumont, who is actually rather petite but just graduated from Bard College. Or Sawyer Kamman, who just graduated from Mount Abraham Union High School and is off to Syracuse University this autumn. Or Casey Ober, who just finished eighth grade at Mount Abraham.
“They’re so much a part of your life for two years. They’re always a part of your story, and you’re always a part of theirs. They’re just so precious to you,” she added.
The mind behind the surprise homecoming was Nancy McClaran, an art teacher at the school. The idea first came to her six months ago, when she and some friends were contemplating the reality that Alice and Donna really were doing the unthinkable: retiring. She wanted to do something that recognized the effect the pair has had on so many kids – now, in some cases, adults. The plan that she crafted with principal Riley? Hide the returning alumni in the school library. Take advantage of the routine, scheduled fire drill to clear the school. Then march the alumni from the library into Alice and Donna’s classrooms.
“Those two are so dedicated and they make such a great team,” Nancy told me. “But they’re different. Alice sets the bar very high and helps the kids do things they didn’t believe they could. Meanwhile, Donna lets you know that you matter. Donna gives you courage.”
Among the alumni who helped spread the word to return to the school for the surprise was Cameron Perta, who right now is studying to become a teacher himself at the University of Vermont. “Alice and Donna are like pillars. None of us can remember a time when they weren’t there,” he told me. “And, of course, Lincoln is so small and the school is so small that we’ll always have this connection. I ran into Bridgette Bartlett and it was like we were both in fifth grade together again.”
Most years, the Lincoln School has roughly 120 to 125 students between kindergarten and sixth grade. In some ways, the kids there are more like siblings than peers – which might explain why so many wanted to return.
“Seeing all those wonderful, smiling faces wasn’t about how much the kids love me, but about how much I love them,” Alice told me the next day. She has been teaching in Lincoln for a quarter of a century. “You carry all those kids inside you. I have memories of every single one and I will carry those memories forever. To have my former students come back because they want to? Such a beautiful gift.”
It was a beautiful gift indeed – but a small one, perhaps, compared to the gift that once upon a time two remarkable teachers gave them.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives on July 8.)
And while there is so much I could write about the two of them – beginning, for instance, with the profound impact they had on my wife’s and my daughter when she was ten and eleven years old – I think a moment in time the week before last speaks volumes.
It was Monday, June 9, just after one-thirty. Alice and Donna were walking their 30 students back inside after a fire drill. The school principal, Tory Riley, said she needed a minute to talk to the kids, and sent the two teachers on ahead to their classrooms. And there Alice and Donna found waiting for them 30 different students: Alumni between the ages of 12 and 27. There were the kids they had taught in some cases years ago, now parents themselves, sitting often in the exact same seats in which they had sat when they were honing their math skills. Or learning about migrant workers. Or reading Shakespeare. (Every other year, the combined fifth and sixth grade class performs one of the Bard’s plays, and – trust me – you have not really seen Shakespeare until you have seen “The Tempest” performed by ten and eleven-year-olds.)
“My first thought,” Donna told me when I asked her what she felt when she walked back into her classroom, “was that there were giants sitting in my students’ seats. After that, I was just trying not to cry.” Those “giants” were former students such as Adrienne Lueders-Dumont, who is actually rather petite but just graduated from Bard College. Or Sawyer Kamman, who just graduated from Mount Abraham Union High School and is off to Syracuse University this autumn. Or Casey Ober, who just finished eighth grade at Mount Abraham.
“They’re so much a part of your life for two years. They’re always a part of your story, and you’re always a part of theirs. They’re just so precious to you,” she added.
The mind behind the surprise homecoming was Nancy McClaran, an art teacher at the school. The idea first came to her six months ago, when she and some friends were contemplating the reality that Alice and Donna really were doing the unthinkable: retiring. She wanted to do something that recognized the effect the pair has had on so many kids – now, in some cases, adults. The plan that she crafted with principal Riley? Hide the returning alumni in the school library. Take advantage of the routine, scheduled fire drill to clear the school. Then march the alumni from the library into Alice and Donna’s classrooms.
“Those two are so dedicated and they make such a great team,” Nancy told me. “But they’re different. Alice sets the bar very high and helps the kids do things they didn’t believe they could. Meanwhile, Donna lets you know that you matter. Donna gives you courage.”
Among the alumni who helped spread the word to return to the school for the surprise was Cameron Perta, who right now is studying to become a teacher himself at the University of Vermont. “Alice and Donna are like pillars. None of us can remember a time when they weren’t there,” he told me. “And, of course, Lincoln is so small and the school is so small that we’ll always have this connection. I ran into Bridgette Bartlett and it was like we were both in fifth grade together again.”
Most years, the Lincoln School has roughly 120 to 125 students between kindergarten and sixth grade. In some ways, the kids there are more like siblings than peers – which might explain why so many wanted to return.
“Seeing all those wonderful, smiling faces wasn’t about how much the kids love me, but about how much I love them,” Alice told me the next day. She has been teaching in Lincoln for a quarter of a century. “You carry all those kids inside you. I have memories of every single one and I will carry those memories forever. To have my former students come back because they want to? Such a beautiful gift.”
It was a beautiful gift indeed – but a small one, perhaps, compared to the gift that once upon a time two remarkable teachers gave them.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives on July 8.)
June 19, 2014
The full Bookpage Review of CLOSE YOUR EYES, HOLD HANDS
Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who are Friends,
Just in from Bookpage -- their review of "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands." Here it is, below, in its entirety.
A thousand thanks to Bookpage and to Karen Ann Cullotta. Color me very grateful.
All the best,
Chris B.
PS: The novel arrives on July 8.
A teenage runaway faces Armageddon
BookPage® Review by Karen Ann Cullotta
If the dystopian coming-of-age novel has been the inspiration for many a Hollywood blockbuster in recent years, the increasingly ubiquitous genre more closely resembles literary fiction in critically acclaimed author Chris Bohjalian’s Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.
For readers who discovered Bohjalian after his luminous Midwives became an Oprah’s Book Club selection, the prolific author’s latest novel will not disappoint: He once again reveals an uncanny talent for crafting a young female protagonist who is fatally flawed, but nevertheless immensely likable.
Emily Shepard is a high school student struggling with a typical adolescence—until her comfortable life is torn asunder after a catastrophic meltdown at a Vermont nuclear plant, where her parents are employed. As Armageddon annihilates the once idyllic Northeast Kingdom, Emily’s father, who was once disciplined for drinking on the job, and her mother, who is also renowned for her alcohol-fueled escapades, become scapegoats.
Orphaned and alone, Emily joins the ranks of homeless teens wandering the streets of Burlington, her intelligence and passion for poet Emily Dickinson coexisting warily alongside a tawdry life riddled by drugs and prostitution. Indeed, it is Emily’s inherent integrity and capacity to endure that proves her salvation.
Although Bohjalian’s latest novel is unflinchingly raw in its depiction of homelessness and the devastation of a nuclear meltdown, it never feels preachy or maudlin. Instead, it resonates with a message of hope, truth and the fragility of life.
Just in from Bookpage -- their review of "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands." Here it is, below, in its entirety.
A thousand thanks to Bookpage and to Karen Ann Cullotta. Color me very grateful.
All the best,
Chris B.
PS: The novel arrives on July 8.
A teenage runaway faces Armageddon
BookPage® Review by Karen Ann Cullotta
If the dystopian coming-of-age novel has been the inspiration for many a Hollywood blockbuster in recent years, the increasingly ubiquitous genre more closely resembles literary fiction in critically acclaimed author Chris Bohjalian’s Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.
For readers who discovered Bohjalian after his luminous Midwives became an Oprah’s Book Club selection, the prolific author’s latest novel will not disappoint: He once again reveals an uncanny talent for crafting a young female protagonist who is fatally flawed, but nevertheless immensely likable.
Emily Shepard is a high school student struggling with a typical adolescence—until her comfortable life is torn asunder after a catastrophic meltdown at a Vermont nuclear plant, where her parents are employed. As Armageddon annihilates the once idyllic Northeast Kingdom, Emily’s father, who was once disciplined for drinking on the job, and her mother, who is also renowned for her alcohol-fueled escapades, become scapegoats.
Orphaned and alone, Emily joins the ranks of homeless teens wandering the streets of Burlington, her intelligence and passion for poet Emily Dickinson coexisting warily alongside a tawdry life riddled by drugs and prostitution. Indeed, it is Emily’s inherent integrity and capacity to endure that proves her salvation.
Although Bohjalian’s latest novel is unflinchingly raw in its depiction of homelessness and the devastation of a nuclear meltdown, it never feels preachy or maudlin. Instead, it resonates with a message of hope, truth and the fragility of life.
June 15, 2014
The memories? Sometimes they're in the mail.
About a year before my father died, when I was visiting him at his home in South Florida, I told him that I was going to the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts to use their wifi and do some work on my laptop that I couldn’t do on my phone.
“Chrissy,” he said – yes, my father often called me Chrissy – “use my computer.”
“When did you get a computer?” I asked, utterly shocked.
“It’s the one you bought me a few years ago.”
I had never bought my father a computer, but I let him lead me into his bedroom. There he pointed to the DVD player underneath his television set. “Isn’t that a computer?” Beside it were some of the DVDs I had gotten him as well, still in their unopened shrink wrap casing. My father never exactly embraced the digital age.
And yet as a young man, he built his career on emerging technologies. He was born in 1928 and so he was spared the Second World War by months. But he enlisted in the Army and served as a radio operator and engineer. After the Army, in the early 1950s, he became a television producer and ad man. When I was growing up, I saw firsthand how he embraced and loved the technology of the TV camera and the editing room, and the way he would help produce sixty-second stories to sell air travel, shampoo, and (yes) cigarettes.
Last month I went through a box with some of his papers and photos that has sat like a tree stump in a corner of my wife’s and my bedroom for nearly three years now –since he died in the summer of 2011. In it I found a letter he’d written to Al and Barbara Kracht, his best friend and his best friend’s wife. The Krachts and been married not quite a month at the time, and my father began the letter, “Dear Lovebirds.” The letter was dated November 10, 1951, which was a Saturday.
There is a lot that I loved about this two-page letter. There is the idea that he had gotten a “little note” from them that very morning, and was answering it that very day. There are the stories he shares with them about the Dionysian parties that occurred after the pair’s wedding in October. And, of course, there is this reference to my mother:
“Last weekend we (my present true love and I) saw the Army vs. USC game and then had dinner. Got real domestic at a friend of mine’s apartment. I could really marry this one if I wasn’t such a louse.”
But what I think I love best is the way the letter was typed and he wrote in by hand – with a black pen – his corrections and edits. Prior to the computer, that was what you did if you didn’t feel like retyping a document.
My father and I rarely corresponded. Usually we just talked on the phone. But there was a period in the two years after he retired to Florida when he would write me long, chatty, handwritten letters. My wife and I had only lived in Vermont a short while and were still building our lives here, so I was the one who allowed that part of our relationship to lapse. It remains one of my regrets. Yeah, I know: All very cat’s cradle. Still, in hindsight it interests me that when he had the time, he liked to write letters.
There are very likely a dozen reasons why my father never expressed much interest in computers. He may have been depressed after my mother died in 1995 and couldn’t cope. His eyes were deteriorating and he wasn’t seeing well. And, perhaps, he was simply tired of the way the world was constantly changing. He’d been part of the TV revolution. Wasn’t that enough? The only times he ever looked at the screens on my laptops were when I was showing him videos of his granddaughter performing or when I would share with him his forty-year-old commercials on Youtube.
But I wish I had been more adamant that he consider a computer. I think, if nothing else, he would have loved email. And with email – without my having to type or write letters – I might have been the correspondent he deserved.
Happy Father’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 15, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives in three weeks: July 8.)
“Chrissy,” he said – yes, my father often called me Chrissy – “use my computer.”
“When did you get a computer?” I asked, utterly shocked.
“It’s the one you bought me a few years ago.”
I had never bought my father a computer, but I let him lead me into his bedroom. There he pointed to the DVD player underneath his television set. “Isn’t that a computer?” Beside it were some of the DVDs I had gotten him as well, still in their unopened shrink wrap casing. My father never exactly embraced the digital age.
And yet as a young man, he built his career on emerging technologies. He was born in 1928 and so he was spared the Second World War by months. But he enlisted in the Army and served as a radio operator and engineer. After the Army, in the early 1950s, he became a television producer and ad man. When I was growing up, I saw firsthand how he embraced and loved the technology of the TV camera and the editing room, and the way he would help produce sixty-second stories to sell air travel, shampoo, and (yes) cigarettes.
Last month I went through a box with some of his papers and photos that has sat like a tree stump in a corner of my wife’s and my bedroom for nearly three years now –since he died in the summer of 2011. In it I found a letter he’d written to Al and Barbara Kracht, his best friend and his best friend’s wife. The Krachts and been married not quite a month at the time, and my father began the letter, “Dear Lovebirds.” The letter was dated November 10, 1951, which was a Saturday.
There is a lot that I loved about this two-page letter. There is the idea that he had gotten a “little note” from them that very morning, and was answering it that very day. There are the stories he shares with them about the Dionysian parties that occurred after the pair’s wedding in October. And, of course, there is this reference to my mother:
“Last weekend we (my present true love and I) saw the Army vs. USC game and then had dinner. Got real domestic at a friend of mine’s apartment. I could really marry this one if I wasn’t such a louse.”
But what I think I love best is the way the letter was typed and he wrote in by hand – with a black pen – his corrections and edits. Prior to the computer, that was what you did if you didn’t feel like retyping a document.
My father and I rarely corresponded. Usually we just talked on the phone. But there was a period in the two years after he retired to Florida when he would write me long, chatty, handwritten letters. My wife and I had only lived in Vermont a short while and were still building our lives here, so I was the one who allowed that part of our relationship to lapse. It remains one of my regrets. Yeah, I know: All very cat’s cradle. Still, in hindsight it interests me that when he had the time, he liked to write letters.
There are very likely a dozen reasons why my father never expressed much interest in computers. He may have been depressed after my mother died in 1995 and couldn’t cope. His eyes were deteriorating and he wasn’t seeing well. And, perhaps, he was simply tired of the way the world was constantly changing. He’d been part of the TV revolution. Wasn’t that enough? The only times he ever looked at the screens on my laptops were when I was showing him videos of his granddaughter performing or when I would share with him his forty-year-old commercials on Youtube.
But I wish I had been more adamant that he consider a computer. I think, if nothing else, he would have loved email. And with email – without my having to type or write letters – I might have been the correspondent he deserved.
Happy Father’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 15, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives in three weeks: July 8.)
June 11, 2014
The "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands" Rock ' Roll Book Tour
Greetings!
Some of you asked for the full schedule for this summer's "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands" Rock 'n Roll Book Tour.
Voila!
July 7
Burlington, Vermont
Fletcher Free Library
7:00 p.m.
Books by Phoenix Books
July 9
Listen to Chris live on the Diane Rehm Show
11:00 a.m., EDT
July 9
Baltimore, Maryland
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (410) 377-2966.
July 10
New York, NY
Armenian General Benevolent Union
55 East 59th Street
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (212) 319-6383
July 11
Warwick, Rhode Island
Barnes & Noble
7:00 p.m.
July 12
Old Lyme, CT
The Big Book Getaway
The Bee & Thistle Inn
Books by Bank Square Books
TWO seatings:
11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Questions? (914) 310-5824
July 13
Ridgefield, New Jersey
Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church
461 Bergen Blvd.
1:00 p.m.
July 14
Fairhope, Alabama
Special "Read It and Eat It" Luncheon
Noon
The Venue
105 South Section Street
Call (251) 928-5295 or
email karin@pageandpalette.com to reserve your seat.
Books by Page & Palette
July 15
Neptune Beach, Florida
The Bookmark
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (904) 241-9026
July 16
Vero Beach, Florida
The Vero Beach Book Center
6:00 p.m.
Questions? (772) 569-1153
July 17
Naperville, Illinois
Anderson's Bookshop
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (630) 355-2665
July 18
Manchester Center, Vermont
The Northshire Bookstore
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (802) 362-2200
July 21
Nashville, Tennessee
Parnassus Books
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (615) 953-2243
July 22
South Hadley, Massachusetts
The Odyssey Bookshop
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (413) 534-7307
July 23
Raleigh, North Carolina
Quail Ridge Books
7:30 p.m.
Questions? (919) 828-7912
July 24
Asheville, North Carolina
Malaprop's
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (828) 254-6734
July 30
Bar Harbour, Maine
Bar Harbour Jessup Memorial Library
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (207) 288-4245
And, of course, there will be free rock 'n roll t-shirts and inappropriate stories about my underwear. It is, after all, a book tour.
Now, to all of you in those places I am not visiting this summer -- places such as California and Colorado and Minnesota: Thank you for your understanding. If only a book tour could be longer than three weeks! Perhaps in the autumn I will be back -- or perhaps those states will be on the next book tour.
Either way, stay tuned and stay in touch. Thanks so much for your faith in what words and reading and books can mean to the soul!
All the best,
Chris B.
Some of you asked for the full schedule for this summer's "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands" Rock 'n Roll Book Tour.
Voila!
July 7
Burlington, Vermont
Fletcher Free Library
7:00 p.m.
Books by Phoenix Books
July 9
Listen to Chris live on the Diane Rehm Show
11:00 a.m., EDT
July 9
Baltimore, Maryland
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (410) 377-2966.
July 10
New York, NY
Armenian General Benevolent Union
55 East 59th Street
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (212) 319-6383
July 11
Warwick, Rhode Island
Barnes & Noble
7:00 p.m.
July 12
Old Lyme, CT
The Big Book Getaway
The Bee & Thistle Inn
Books by Bank Square Books
TWO seatings:
11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Questions? (914) 310-5824
July 13
Ridgefield, New Jersey
Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church
461 Bergen Blvd.
1:00 p.m.
July 14
Fairhope, Alabama
Special "Read It and Eat It" Luncheon
Noon
The Venue
105 South Section Street
Call (251) 928-5295 or
email karin@pageandpalette.com to reserve your seat.
Books by Page & Palette
July 15
Neptune Beach, Florida
The Bookmark
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (904) 241-9026
July 16
Vero Beach, Florida
The Vero Beach Book Center
6:00 p.m.
Questions? (772) 569-1153
July 17
Naperville, Illinois
Anderson's Bookshop
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (630) 355-2665
July 18
Manchester Center, Vermont
The Northshire Bookstore
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (802) 362-2200
July 21
Nashville, Tennessee
Parnassus Books
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (615) 953-2243
July 22
South Hadley, Massachusetts
The Odyssey Bookshop
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (413) 534-7307
July 23
Raleigh, North Carolina
Quail Ridge Books
7:30 p.m.
Questions? (919) 828-7912
July 24
Asheville, North Carolina
Malaprop's
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (828) 254-6734
July 30
Bar Harbour, Maine
Bar Harbour Jessup Memorial Library
7:00 p.m.
Questions? (207) 288-4245
And, of course, there will be free rock 'n roll t-shirts and inappropriate stories about my underwear. It is, after all, a book tour.
Now, to all of you in those places I am not visiting this summer -- places such as California and Colorado and Minnesota: Thank you for your understanding. If only a book tour could be longer than three weeks! Perhaps in the autumn I will be back -- or perhaps those states will be on the next book tour.
Either way, stay tuned and stay in touch. Thanks so much for your faith in what words and reading and books can mean to the soul!
All the best,
Chris B.
June 9, 2014
Another chance to win a free advance copy of “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands”
Greetings!
"Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands" doesn't go on sale for a month. The novel is the story of Emily Shepard, a young girl trying to survive on the streets of Burlington, Vermont after a cataclysmic meltdown at Vermont's lone nuclear plant. She's a cutter, an Oxycontin addict, and an aspiring poet who reveres Emily Dickinson.
I see that Doubleday Books and Goodreads are holding one last chance to win free advance editions of the novel.
They are giving away 25 copies.
Interested? Click here:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
Thank you, as always, for your faith in my work. Fingers crossed my books never disappoint you.
I hope I meet many of you on tour this summer.
All the best,
Chris B.
"Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands" doesn't go on sale for a month. The novel is the story of Emily Shepard, a young girl trying to survive on the streets of Burlington, Vermont after a cataclysmic meltdown at Vermont's lone nuclear plant. She's a cutter, an Oxycontin addict, and an aspiring poet who reveres Emily Dickinson.
I see that Doubleday Books and Goodreads are holding one last chance to win free advance editions of the novel.
They are giving away 25 copies.
Interested? Click here:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
Thank you, as always, for your faith in my work. Fingers crossed my books never disappoint you.
I hope I meet many of you on tour this summer.
All the best,
Chris B.
June 8, 2014
Vermont in 1927? As "pawky" as ever.
In the spring of 1927, “National Geographic” profiled the Green Mountain State. The Vermont that the magazine shared with the world was at once recognizably ours, expectedly anachronistic, and weirdly prophetic. Portland, Oregon reader Clifford Sagendorf mailed me the magazine story last year, so I owe him both my thanks for sending it to me and my apologies for only opening the envelope last week. (Sometimes I get to my mail in a timely fashion. Sometimes, apparently, not.) Sagendorf’s family still resides in Vermont.
In any case, the magazine writer, Herbert Corey, was impressed by the state’s freakishly long winters and our manufacturing prowess. (The first steel square for carpenters was made in Shaftsbury! We are known for our scales!) He expected an increase in summer visitors to Vermont over time. And he felt we were a “cheerful, sunny, independent little State,” with “a pawky humor that might trace to [our] Caledonian pioneers.”
It’s worth reminding ourselves that in 1927, a Vermonter – Calvin Coolidge – was in the White House, the first uphill ski tow in the state was still seven years distant, and there were no four-lane interstate highways linking Vermont with southern New England. Without irony, Corey could rhapsodize about our state’s vast mineral riches, including slate and talc and our “vast beds of asbestos.” He gushed that “if one sees nothing else in Vermont today, he should see the marble quarries and the granite works, where armies of skilled men, equipped with the latest engineering appliances, wrest huge blocks of stone from the State’s rich mountain sides.”
Always in the spring is the – Corey’s words, not mine – “insidious odors of boiling syrup,” and yet there is still a huge upside to sugaring here: “It is. . .an industry which may enter the major class when tree owners properly appreciate their opportunities.” Too many trees, it seems, “are luxuriating in forest idleness.”
At the same, he wondered, who could ever have predicted that our “rounded hills and lovely dales would sometime offer a promising vacation ground – at a profit – to the thousands in the great cities within a few hours’ ride.” (In 1927, we could still use expressions such as “hills and dales” without being excoriated on the social networks. Also, “few” must have meant something different in 1927, since it must have taken a good five hours to drive from New York City to Bennington 87 years ago. It probably took eight or nine hours to reach Burlington.)
It was a pretty quaint state in 1927. The doctors made house calls on snowshoes. People pulled taffy for fun. And while the winters were “savage,” they gave a farmer “time for reading and thought.”
And, of course, Corey observed that our population had remained more or less stagnant since 1850, and by the time he was profiling the state, we had more cows than people.
To this day when I travel, I’m often asked if we still have more cows then people. Sometimes, given the transformation of dairy farming here – many fewer farms, but larger herds – I tell them we have more microbreweries than people. As the Vermont Brewers Association boasts, “Small state. Big beer.”
My sense is that Vermont has changed no more or less than any other state since 1927. But who would have predicted that in 2014 we might be known best for coffee, ice cream, and Phish? Who would have guessed that we would be battling a horrific heroin epidemic?
Nevertheless, I loved to walk back in time in that issue of “National Geographic,” and see what we looked like to the rest of the world. And while I can’t begin to imagine what our state will look like in another 87 years, I do hope that – no matter what else changes – we still have our “pawky” sense of humor.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 8. Chris’s next novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives next month.)
In any case, the magazine writer, Herbert Corey, was impressed by the state’s freakishly long winters and our manufacturing prowess. (The first steel square for carpenters was made in Shaftsbury! We are known for our scales!) He expected an increase in summer visitors to Vermont over time. And he felt we were a “cheerful, sunny, independent little State,” with “a pawky humor that might trace to [our] Caledonian pioneers.”
It’s worth reminding ourselves that in 1927, a Vermonter – Calvin Coolidge – was in the White House, the first uphill ski tow in the state was still seven years distant, and there were no four-lane interstate highways linking Vermont with southern New England. Without irony, Corey could rhapsodize about our state’s vast mineral riches, including slate and talc and our “vast beds of asbestos.” He gushed that “if one sees nothing else in Vermont today, he should see the marble quarries and the granite works, where armies of skilled men, equipped with the latest engineering appliances, wrest huge blocks of stone from the State’s rich mountain sides.”
Always in the spring is the – Corey’s words, not mine – “insidious odors of boiling syrup,” and yet there is still a huge upside to sugaring here: “It is. . .an industry which may enter the major class when tree owners properly appreciate their opportunities.” Too many trees, it seems, “are luxuriating in forest idleness.”
At the same, he wondered, who could ever have predicted that our “rounded hills and lovely dales would sometime offer a promising vacation ground – at a profit – to the thousands in the great cities within a few hours’ ride.” (In 1927, we could still use expressions such as “hills and dales” without being excoriated on the social networks. Also, “few” must have meant something different in 1927, since it must have taken a good five hours to drive from New York City to Bennington 87 years ago. It probably took eight or nine hours to reach Burlington.)
It was a pretty quaint state in 1927. The doctors made house calls on snowshoes. People pulled taffy for fun. And while the winters were “savage,” they gave a farmer “time for reading and thought.”
And, of course, Corey observed that our population had remained more or less stagnant since 1850, and by the time he was profiling the state, we had more cows than people.
To this day when I travel, I’m often asked if we still have more cows then people. Sometimes, given the transformation of dairy farming here – many fewer farms, but larger herds – I tell them we have more microbreweries than people. As the Vermont Brewers Association boasts, “Small state. Big beer.”
My sense is that Vermont has changed no more or less than any other state since 1927. But who would have predicted that in 2014 we might be known best for coffee, ice cream, and Phish? Who would have guessed that we would be battling a horrific heroin epidemic?
Nevertheless, I loved to walk back in time in that issue of “National Geographic,” and see what we looked like to the rest of the world. And while I can’t begin to imagine what our state will look like in another 87 years, I do hope that – no matter what else changes – we still have our “pawky” sense of humor.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 8. Chris’s next novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives next month.)
June 1, 2014
Nine lives is a lot -- but not forever
My wife and I don’t have a lot of yard; our house sits on three-quarters of an acre. Moreover, a lot of that partial acre is taken up by the old horse barn that now serves as our garage and woodshed. But somehow we have found the space in our yard to bury eight cats: Merlin, Clinton, Cassandra, Dorset, Dalvay, BK, BK2, and – a couple of weeks ago – Ella.
That might sound like we’ve had bad luck with cats. On the contrary, we’ve had great luck. It’s simply that we’ve always had a large pride. During most of our quarter-century in Lincoln, we’ve had at least four cats, and sometimes we’ve had as many as six.
But, alas, on a Saturday last month, the pride fell by one: Ella. She was a black cat who, at her largest, looked like a very plush throw pillow. According to an animal communicator who once interviewed her, she aspired to be a dancer – like my wife’s and my daughter. I am not making that up.
Ella lived to be 16 and change, and the last year and four months of her life we brought her to the Bristol Animal Hospital every three or four days, where Heather or Nancy or Jen or two different women who share the name Kathy would hydrate her. Her kidneys were in renal failure and this was the treatment. They would squeeze a bag of water into her side and her kidneys would work like a charm for another three or four days, and she would chow down like she’d been entered into a competitive eating competition at Coney Island.
I remember that when she was diagnosed with renal failure in February 2013, my wife and I were hoping the hydration would give her a happy, comfortable four or five months. She’d get to spend a few warm summer days lounging in the sun on the front porch. Well, she got that. She also got an autumn sniffing at the mole holes beside the blueberry bushes and the birdbath. She got another winter beside the woodstove. And she was given the gift of another full spring – which meant we did, too.
What got her in the end? A stroke, which just might be the way to go. I took a break from yard work on a Saturday afternoon and wandered inside for a glass of water. There I heard Ella yowling. She was facing a corner in the den, apparently believing that she was trapped. When I lifted her up and brought her to the center of the room, she was dragging her left leg and stumbling in a circle. Immediately my wife and I brought her to the Burlington Emergency and Veterinary Services in Williston, which is open on Saturday afternoons. There we learned that Ella was most likely blind and deaf now. She also seemed to be losing control of her left front leg.
Two days earlier, she had had her annual physical, and she was doing great. Sure, her kidneys needed a little help. But otherwise she happy and healthy. She was always a trooper of a traveler and patient.
But now we knew it was time for her to join the other members of the pride who had come – and gone – before her. We buried her at dusk in a spot not far from Merlin and Clinton.
I have friends who think the size of my family’s pride is excessive, but not because of the hairballs, the turd hockey, or (most recently) the hydration. They think we’re crazy because the size invariably means mourning.
And, yes, that loss is hard. I wrote literally tens of thousands of words with Ella purring in my lap. Barely a week after we said good-bye to her, we learned that another of our cats, Horton, has a heart murmur, and even with treatment her time with us will be abridged.
But that pain is a small price to pay for all the pleasure we derive from caring for a large and eccentric pride. So we live with loss – and savor the time we have together.
Godspeed, Ella. See you on the other side.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 1, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives next month.)
That might sound like we’ve had bad luck with cats. On the contrary, we’ve had great luck. It’s simply that we’ve always had a large pride. During most of our quarter-century in Lincoln, we’ve had at least four cats, and sometimes we’ve had as many as six.
But, alas, on a Saturday last month, the pride fell by one: Ella. She was a black cat who, at her largest, looked like a very plush throw pillow. According to an animal communicator who once interviewed her, she aspired to be a dancer – like my wife’s and my daughter. I am not making that up.
Ella lived to be 16 and change, and the last year and four months of her life we brought her to the Bristol Animal Hospital every three or four days, where Heather or Nancy or Jen or two different women who share the name Kathy would hydrate her. Her kidneys were in renal failure and this was the treatment. They would squeeze a bag of water into her side and her kidneys would work like a charm for another three or four days, and she would chow down like she’d been entered into a competitive eating competition at Coney Island.
I remember that when she was diagnosed with renal failure in February 2013, my wife and I were hoping the hydration would give her a happy, comfortable four or five months. She’d get to spend a few warm summer days lounging in the sun on the front porch. Well, she got that. She also got an autumn sniffing at the mole holes beside the blueberry bushes and the birdbath. She got another winter beside the woodstove. And she was given the gift of another full spring – which meant we did, too.
What got her in the end? A stroke, which just might be the way to go. I took a break from yard work on a Saturday afternoon and wandered inside for a glass of water. There I heard Ella yowling. She was facing a corner in the den, apparently believing that she was trapped. When I lifted her up and brought her to the center of the room, she was dragging her left leg and stumbling in a circle. Immediately my wife and I brought her to the Burlington Emergency and Veterinary Services in Williston, which is open on Saturday afternoons. There we learned that Ella was most likely blind and deaf now. She also seemed to be losing control of her left front leg.
Two days earlier, she had had her annual physical, and she was doing great. Sure, her kidneys needed a little help. But otherwise she happy and healthy. She was always a trooper of a traveler and patient.
But now we knew it was time for her to join the other members of the pride who had come – and gone – before her. We buried her at dusk in a spot not far from Merlin and Clinton.
I have friends who think the size of my family’s pride is excessive, but not because of the hairballs, the turd hockey, or (most recently) the hydration. They think we’re crazy because the size invariably means mourning.
And, yes, that loss is hard. I wrote literally tens of thousands of words with Ella purring in my lap. Barely a week after we said good-bye to her, we learned that another of our cats, Horton, has a heart murmur, and even with treatment her time with us will be abridged.
But that pain is a small price to pay for all the pleasure we derive from caring for a large and eccentric pride. So we live with loss – and savor the time we have together.
Godspeed, Ella. See you on the other side.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on June 1, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives next month.)
May 25, 2014
Led down the garden path -- and glad
When I was growing up, my family never had vegetable gardens, because my mother was unlikely to serve a vegetable that didn’t come from a can. In all fairness, it was the era: In the 1960s and 1970s, food was supposed to come from cans and boxes, unless it was a frozen TV dinner, in which case it was supposed to come from a tin tray. Also, my mother enjoyed her calories most when they came from chocolate and scotch.
I’m honestly not sure I ever ate a pea that hadn’t come from a can until my girlfriend’s mother had me shell a bunch one summer afternoon when I was 18 years old, and staying with that family while working as a dishwasher at a restaurant near their home in New Hampshire. A few years later that woman would become my mother-in-law, and she always took great pride in the way she taught me to eat my vegetables. (At least most of my vegetables. She never convinced me there was any reason why Swiss chard should be granted space on my plate.)
Yet one of my favorite times of the year these days is that weekend in May when my wife and I plant our vegetable garden here in Vermont. The process for me is alive with Proustian associations that have everything to do with people in my life and almost nothing to do with the kinds of tomatoes we’ve chosen to plant or the varieties of lettuce we’ve selected.
For example, there is the section of grass beside the garden where, two decades ago, my wife and I placed our seven-month-old daughter, Grace, in a blue canvas rocker, and she watched us and cooed as we worked. We were planting peas, and I always associate the rows in that section of the garden with our infant daughter’s wide eyes and the way she seemed so happy in the May sunshine.
There is the corner of the garden where Clark Atkins – who had to be in his mid-seventies at the time – backed up his pickup truck, angled a few sturdy planks from the rear of the truck onto the grass, and carefully walked his rototiller down them and into the yard. Clark was the first person to till the soil after we moved from Brooklyn to Vermont. This was a quarter of a century ago now.
And while we no longer have rhubarb behind our house, we did once, and I know right where it was – and often recall Lida Cloe when I walk near the patch, because it was Lida who showed us how delicious rhubarb was when served with strawberry preserves and vanilla ice cream.
My wife and I take the process of planting our garden very seriously, but we’ve done it so many times now that we are very efficient. What took a weekend twenty years ago now takes a day. We rarely bother with grids and maps, because even though we rotate our crops, we still know right where everything is going to emerge. The carrots and the beets. The different kinds of peppers. The basil, the parsley, and the cilantro.
My mother, when she would visit us in Vermont, was utterly baffled when she would survey the garden. One August afternoon when she was with us, I pulled a carrot from the ground and offered to run it under the hose so she could enjoy it that very moment. “Unless that hose sprays chocolate sauce, I’m okay,” she said – though in all fairness she did eat most of her salad that night. The reality is that my mother opened her cans of vegetables with love.
In any case, it’s easy for my mind to meander as I garden, and invariably my associations involve family and friends: People I’ve learned from and people I’ve loved. I think that’s true for most gardeners, because gardening is about food. As a character in one of my novels observed some years ago, “Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially – romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memories.”
Indeed. And that’s probably true whether the peas come from a can or a farm stand or a garden in your backyard.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 25, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives on July 8. There are 18 appearances on the book tour:
http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/events
I’m honestly not sure I ever ate a pea that hadn’t come from a can until my girlfriend’s mother had me shell a bunch one summer afternoon when I was 18 years old, and staying with that family while working as a dishwasher at a restaurant near their home in New Hampshire. A few years later that woman would become my mother-in-law, and she always took great pride in the way she taught me to eat my vegetables. (At least most of my vegetables. She never convinced me there was any reason why Swiss chard should be granted space on my plate.)
Yet one of my favorite times of the year these days is that weekend in May when my wife and I plant our vegetable garden here in Vermont. The process for me is alive with Proustian associations that have everything to do with people in my life and almost nothing to do with the kinds of tomatoes we’ve chosen to plant or the varieties of lettuce we’ve selected.
For example, there is the section of grass beside the garden where, two decades ago, my wife and I placed our seven-month-old daughter, Grace, in a blue canvas rocker, and she watched us and cooed as we worked. We were planting peas, and I always associate the rows in that section of the garden with our infant daughter’s wide eyes and the way she seemed so happy in the May sunshine.
There is the corner of the garden where Clark Atkins – who had to be in his mid-seventies at the time – backed up his pickup truck, angled a few sturdy planks from the rear of the truck onto the grass, and carefully walked his rototiller down them and into the yard. Clark was the first person to till the soil after we moved from Brooklyn to Vermont. This was a quarter of a century ago now.
And while we no longer have rhubarb behind our house, we did once, and I know right where it was – and often recall Lida Cloe when I walk near the patch, because it was Lida who showed us how delicious rhubarb was when served with strawberry preserves and vanilla ice cream.
My wife and I take the process of planting our garden very seriously, but we’ve done it so many times now that we are very efficient. What took a weekend twenty years ago now takes a day. We rarely bother with grids and maps, because even though we rotate our crops, we still know right where everything is going to emerge. The carrots and the beets. The different kinds of peppers. The basil, the parsley, and the cilantro.
My mother, when she would visit us in Vermont, was utterly baffled when she would survey the garden. One August afternoon when she was with us, I pulled a carrot from the ground and offered to run it under the hose so she could enjoy it that very moment. “Unless that hose sprays chocolate sauce, I’m okay,” she said – though in all fairness she did eat most of her salad that night. The reality is that my mother opened her cans of vegetables with love.
In any case, it’s easy for my mind to meander as I garden, and invariably my associations involve family and friends: People I’ve learned from and people I’ve loved. I think that’s true for most gardeners, because gardening is about food. As a character in one of my novels observed some years ago, “Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially – romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memories.”
Indeed. And that’s probably true whether the peas come from a can or a farm stand or a garden in your backyard.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 25, 2014. Chris’s new novel, “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands,” arrives on July 8. There are 18 appearances on the book tour:
http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/events
May 19, 2014
The Library Journal Review of CLOSE YOUR EYES, HOLD HANDS
Again, color me very grateful Truly. . .
Library Journal
04/01/2014
Even before catastrophe strikes the Cape Abenaki nuclear power plant that her father manages, 16-year-old Emily Shepard's world is less than ideal. As the child of alcoholics she's seen more drama than most people twice her age, but the ordinary insanity of life pales beside the reactor meltdown that turns Vermont's Northeast Kingdom into a wasteland. After losing her parents, home, and dog to the disaster that her father is suspected of causing, Emily is left homeless and alone except for the similarly dispossessed nine-year-old boy that she's taken under her wing. Before long, Emily is cutting herself to relieve her grief, isolation, and overwhelming fear of what she's supposed to do with the rest of her life. VERDICT No stranger to tough issues, Bohjalian tackles nuclear power, homelessness, and self-mutilation with his trademark sensitivity, careful research, and elegant prose. These are heavy subjects to read about—Emily's story is both heartbreaking and frightening, and even the final denouement is afflicted with sorrow. Nevertheless, the book rings with poetry and truth. Neither Bohjalian's fans nor book clubs will be disappointed. [See Prepub Alert, 1/10/14.]—Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY
Library Journal
04/01/2014
Even before catastrophe strikes the Cape Abenaki nuclear power plant that her father manages, 16-year-old Emily Shepard's world is less than ideal. As the child of alcoholics she's seen more drama than most people twice her age, but the ordinary insanity of life pales beside the reactor meltdown that turns Vermont's Northeast Kingdom into a wasteland. After losing her parents, home, and dog to the disaster that her father is suspected of causing, Emily is left homeless and alone except for the similarly dispossessed nine-year-old boy that she's taken under her wing. Before long, Emily is cutting herself to relieve her grief, isolation, and overwhelming fear of what she's supposed to do with the rest of her life. VERDICT No stranger to tough issues, Bohjalian tackles nuclear power, homelessness, and self-mutilation with his trademark sensitivity, careful research, and elegant prose. These are heavy subjects to read about—Emily's story is both heartbreaking and frightening, and even the final denouement is afflicted with sorrow. Nevertheless, the book rings with poetry and truth. Neither Bohjalian's fans nor book clubs will be disappointed. [See Prepub Alert, 1/10/14.]—Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY
May 18, 2014
The Publishers Weekly Review of "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands"
Color me very grateful to Publishers Weekly:
Bohjalian’s impressive 16th novel charts the life of a teenage girl undone after a nuclear disaster. Already troubled, rebellious Emily Shepard becomes orphaned and homeless after the meltdown of Reddington’s nuclear power plant in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Wandering aimlessly, she finds refuge in a local shelter with Cameron, a nine-year-old boy she soon finds herself protecting. Emily is banished once she’s pegged as the daughter of heavy-drinking parents both employed (and held responsible by surviving townsfolk) at the power plant where the meltdown occurred. Frequent flashbacks to her days at school and the youth shelter show her surrounded by influential miscreants, self-abusing “cutters,” and drug takers like friends Andrea and Camille. Stealing and shoplifting through neighboring towns in order to survive the frigid New England winter becomes an often harrowing ordeal for Emily and Cameron as she attempts to figure out her next move. Through her first-person narration, readers become intimately familiar with Emily (and Cameron), as she grapples with the frustrating life of a misunderstood homeless youth on the run. Emily continually surprises herself with her newfound maternal instincts for Cameron and how difficult it is to survive life on the streets. Her admiration for kindred spirit Emily Dickinson serves to humanize her plight, as does an epiphany in the book’s bittersweet conclusion. (July 8)
Bohjalian’s impressive 16th novel charts the life of a teenage girl undone after a nuclear disaster. Already troubled, rebellious Emily Shepard becomes orphaned and homeless after the meltdown of Reddington’s nuclear power plant in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Wandering aimlessly, she finds refuge in a local shelter with Cameron, a nine-year-old boy she soon finds herself protecting. Emily is banished once she’s pegged as the daughter of heavy-drinking parents both employed (and held responsible by surviving townsfolk) at the power plant where the meltdown occurred. Frequent flashbacks to her days at school and the youth shelter show her surrounded by influential miscreants, self-abusing “cutters,” and drug takers like friends Andrea and Camille. Stealing and shoplifting through neighboring towns in order to survive the frigid New England winter becomes an often harrowing ordeal for Emily and Cameron as she attempts to figure out her next move. Through her first-person narration, readers become intimately familiar with Emily (and Cameron), as she grapples with the frustrating life of a misunderstood homeless youth on the run. Emily continually surprises herself with her newfound maternal instincts for Cameron and how difficult it is to survive life on the streets. Her admiration for kindred spirit Emily Dickinson serves to humanize her plight, as does an epiphany in the book’s bittersweet conclusion. (July 8)
