Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 34

Love is blind -- especially when it comes to the ziti

Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday that reminds us all of how important it is to be present in the lives of the people we love — or, if we don’t have the time to be present, to post a photo on Facebook. Let’s face it, nothing says love like a photo on Facebook.

Earlier this month I asked people who had been married 40 years to share with me the secrets to keeping love alive and making a relationship last that long. Here are some of their answers.

• Candy Moot: “Does it count if my 40 years were with two different husbands? I am currently married, but I often introduce my husband as my ‘current’ husband. I don’t want him to get overconfident.”

• David Kelley (Candy Moot’s first husband): “William James wrote that ‘the art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.’ Let go of the small stuff. Remember the guy who killed his wife because she overcooked the ziti? I probably would have overlooked that.”

• Chuck Nichols (Candy Moot’s “current” husband): “Trust. Sex. Respect. Sex. Good communication. Sex.”

• Melinda Moulton: “I love the way my husband smells. Curling up next to Rick at night and sniffing his skin drives me wild.”

• Jan Buker: “Enjoy everything, even the smallest moments. And remember that often the things that go wrong make the best stories. That was a Ron Rood statement!” (Naturalist, writer, and commentator Ron Rood was Jan’s father.)

• Donna Frost: “The secret? A good recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.”

• Bob Conlon: “Betsy and I really love each other a lot, but the real secret is to marry a woman who is better than you are.”

• Jacqueline P. Kelly: “There’s a joke about an elderly lady who was asked if she had ever considered divorce from her husband. She thought for a few minutes and answered, ‘Divorce, no. Murder, yes.’ There are moments in every marriage when things get tough. When that happens, you need to remember why you got married in the first place, and use that to get through the rough patches.”

• Jane Graham McCown: “The secret is a sense of humor and a short memory.”

• Nancy Hall: “We go camping and get away from all electronics. No phone, no TV, no computer. We recharge and re-center our lives.”

• Kathy Nowlan: “Honesty. Respectfulness. Humbleness. And faith.”

• Barbara Gaudreau: “Love sports.”

• Dorothy Lear: “My husband, Jim, and I are very different people, but we have always operated as a team — and we really enjoy each other’s company.”

• Kathie Taylor: “It’s not enough to love the person you’re with, you have to like them, too. My man is my best friend. Oh, and don’t forget: Always hold hands!”

• Gail Kindness Hurley: “I married the boy next door. When you think of it, we already knew each other’s families. We had the same friends — and we still have the same friends today. The secret is a good sense of humor, trust and forgiveness.”

• Leslie Kleh Broome: “My parents just hit 60 years this year. I think a large house helps — they can maintain separate sanities.”

• Lynn Barry: “Taking each other too seriously is not good for longevity in the marriage department. So, laugh. I mean it. Laugh out loud — a lot!”

• Roberta O’Hara: “The real secret to 40 years of marriage? Combine all the years from your three marriages.”

So, there you have it: Wisdom from the folks who have been married a lot of years — albeit, in some cases, to different people.

Now, go post your photos on Facebook. Happy Valentine’s Day.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on February 12, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” will be published by Doubleday on July 17.)

Thank you for 20 years -- and a thousand-plus Sundays

Here’s a sentence I never expected to write: This week marks my 20th anniversary writing a weekly column. The first “Idyll Banter” column appeared in this newspaper’s living section on Feb. 9, 1992. Actually, it wasn’t called “Idyll Banter” then. It was just my name and mug shot and 675 vaguely incoherent words wondering why the Green Mountains — a land of maple syrup and cheese — had brands of coffee and salsa.

When I first agreed to write a weekly column, my hope was to last one year. Find 52 things to say. Then, after a year, I expected to throw in the towel. I’d been writing for the newspaper since February 1988, but nothing as demanding as a weekly column. I had started four years earlier with a monthly column: Business advice. Then, in 1989, I started scribbling occasional essays for the living section. Candace Page and Steve Mease were the first Free Press editors to take a chance on my work. Juli Metzger and Ron Thornburg were the editors who actually gave me the column. So, if anyone’s to blame for “Idyll Banter,” it’s the four of them.

But in 1992, the notion that I’d be writing a weekly column 20 years later seemed as improbable to me as Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, or — coming soon to the smart phone in your pants — Toaster Glock, the first game that combines our national passions for handguns and carbs. (Okay, I made up Toaster Glock. Expect instead Tebow-zo, the first smart phone game to combine football and clowning.) Only twice in the last two decades have I not had a column in this paper on Sunday morning. That means I’ve written 1,038 columns — or roughly 700,650 words. That’s the equivalent of seven novels.

Just for the record, of those 700,650 words, about half have been “turd” and “hockey.” I have written about my cats a lot. You probably know way more about them than you need to.

Obviously an enormous amount has changed in the last two decades in my beloved Lincoln, in Vermont and in our world. When I began this column, my wife and I hadn’t any children. Now we have a daughter in college. In 1992, my parents were alive and healthy. So was my mother-in-law. Now they’re all gone. Likewise, you don’t need me to chronicle the ways the digital age has flattened the globe or how much reality TV has added to our culture. When the history of the last 20 years is written, we all know there will be plenty of room accorded Kim Kardashian.

But as grateful as I am to Kim for providing occasional content for “Idyll Banter,” the column was never really about her. It was about my family and about my neighbors. It has been, I hope, about those dreams and desires that remain constant across generations. In my case, that has meant being a husband, a dad, a brother and a son. If “Idyll Banter” has been about anything, it has been, first and foremost, about family.

Young writers ask me often if I keep a journal. I don’t. I have notebooks that hold research for my novels, but I have never kept a diary. Why? Because “Idyll Banter” has been my diary. This column has been where I have tried to make sense of the loss of close pals and parents, and where I have celebrated the wondrous joys of marriage and fatherhood and friendship. Likewise, it has been where I have chronicled the unremarkable but universal moments that comprise every day of our lives. The first snow. The last leaf. The swimming hole. The ice jam.

And I have enjoyed it more than you know. This column has been a great gift.

Will I still be writing it in 20 years? No idea. I have no idea if I’ll even be alive in 20 years. In the meantime, however, I will continue to be here every Sunday. Or, at least, most Sundays.

And so the two most important words I can leave you with this morning (other than “turd” and “hockey”) are these: Thank you. Thank you so much for being a part of my life — and allowing me to be a part of yours.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 5, 2012. Chris’s next novel, The Sandcastle Girls, will be published on July 17, 2012.)

A novel idea: Lights. Camera. Action.

Next Saturday night, February 4, Lifetime Television will be premiering the movie version of my novel, “Secrets of Eden.” This is the third time that one of my books has become a made-for-TV movie, and people often ask me two things about my novels and Hollywood.

First, how do I feel about the adaptation? What do I think of the changes that have been made to transform a 100,000-word novel into two hours of TV?

Second, am I in it? In other words, was I a walk-on extra in the background somewhere?

That second question is easy. No. Never. Not because I’m not vain. Trust me, I’m plenty vain. Certainly I considered asking to sit on the jury that tried Sibyl Danforth – a.k.a., Sissy Spacek – in “Midwives.” I thought about volunteering to be among the parishioners in a Vermont church with a pastor named Stephen Drew – a.k.a., John Stamos – in “Secrets of Eden.” But that would demand more time on the set than I have ever allocated to a movie while it’s filming. The fact is, if you’re not a part of the cast or crew, a movie set is a bit like sitting in row 19 on a passenger jet: As the old joke goes, it’s hours of boredom interrupted by moments of terror.

In addition, I can’t act. Not even a little bit. I make Pauly D. from the “Jersey Shore” look like Laurence Oliver.

Moreover, I will never forget the t-shirt that Glenn Jordan, the director of “Midwives,” was wearing while I was there. It said, “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.” He meant it and I was terrified. I did nothing but eat doughnuts and make sure my cell phone was off for 72 hours.

But that first question, how do I feel about seeing my stories changed – often dramatically – is more complicated. It’s also more important. I love movies. And I love film adaptations of novels. I’ve never been a purist who rails at how the movie is never as good as the novel. Exhibit A? “Sophie’s Choice.” Exhibit B? David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Exhibit C? “Jaws.” I was dazzled by each of those novels. . .but I thought the films were superior.

And I appreciate the choices a screenwriter and a director have to make. It’s not merely about consolidation, although brevity often is key. A movie is told through visual images and dialogue and music. As a novelist, on the other hand, I can spend fifty words describing a sneeze – and fifty more having the character fret about the flu.

The truth is, I’ve never written a screenplay and have no plans to anytime soon. It has taken me decades to become an adequate novelist; I shudder to think how long it would take to become an adequate screenwriter. That’s not false modesty; it’s a reality. A screenplay is profoundly different from a novel, and for every novelist who figured out how to write a movie – Think Mario Puzo and “The Godfather” – there are many more who failed. Think Scott Fitzgerald.

Moreover, a movie is a reimagining of a novel. To a certain extent, it is a big, hulking collaboration involving hundreds of people. But it is most certainly not a camel – that proverbial horse designed by a committee. In the case of “Secrets of Eden,” there was the vision of the director, Tawnia McKiernan, and the screenwriter, Anne Meredith. John Stamos did not merely work from my novel when he was bringing Vermont pastor Stephen Drew to life; he had Meredith’s script. When I watched the finished cut for the first time, I was struck by how recognizable the minister was to me in some ways, but how different in others: He was gentler in some moments and angrier – more fierce – in others. But he always felt authentic to me and deeply rooted in the two texts – Meredith’s and mine.

Consequently, when one of my books is in the process of becoming a movie, I fully expect that it will change. It will grow in some ways and shrink in others. There will be some decisions that make all the sense in the world to me, and some choices that seem inexplicable. Always, however, the producers have respected the integrity of my work and remained fundamentally faithful to the novel that first inspired them. Happily, no one has ever added an asteroid to one of my books or thought it would make sense to put Adam Sandler in a dress in one. I don’t expect the people I work with ever will.

And so my short answer to that first question, how do I feel about the adaptations, is pretty simple. I love them. I feel great. And next Saturday night, even though I’ll be watching “Secrets of Eden” at home, I’ll be sure I have plenty of popcorn.

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This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on January 29, 2012. To watch the :30 TV trailer for "Secrets of Eden," click here:

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/secr...






























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Secrets of Eden -- the movie trailer

My novel, "Secrets of Eden," comes to the (small) screen on Saturday night, February 4, on Lifetime Television.

It stars John Stamos and "Breaking Bad's" Anna Gunn.

Here is a :30 TV trailer, featuring John Stamos as my deeply conflicted Reverend Stephen Drew:

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/secr...

Not all rats are finks

My friend Lisa Goodyear-Prescott gets a wee bit uncomfortable around mice and rats. Actually, “wee bit uncomfortable” is a euphemism for “off-the-meter shrieking and off-the-charts, Freddy Krueger-is-in-the-house terror.” My sense is that even the Kia Party Rock gerbils give Lisa the jitters.

And, of course, she’s not alone – especially when it comes to rats. We don’t really like rats, in part because we know they carried the fleas that killed roughly a third of the human population of Europe in the fourteenth-century. You think it takes a while for someone to forgive you for posting a dorky photo of them on facebook? Well, just imagine how long it takes to live down the bad rap that comes with spreading the bubonic plague to a continent.

The result is that rats now desert sinking ships. We smell them when there is a waft of moral impropriety in the air. We have gutter rats, mall rats, and – for those few creatures that did not desert the aforementioned sinking ship – drowned rats.

The one exception to this? Someone thought it was a good idea for Michael Jackson to record a hauntingly beautiful but deeply disturbing ballad about the friendship between a boy and his rat in 1972, when Jackson was barely in middle school. The song, “Ben,” was part of the movie, “Ben,” the sequel to “Willard,” and would win the Golden Globe for “Best Song.” Among the lyrics:

“If you ever look behind and don’t like what you find,

There’s something you should know, you’ve got a place to go.”

Few people are going to peg the early 1970s as the pinnacle in pop music. Or, apparently, in movies.

In any case, the folks behind the song and the movie, “Ben,” may have been on to something. We may have been underestimating rodents all these centuries. Researchers at the University of Chicago last month unveiled a study that suggests rats may be considerably more empathetic than we realize. The study appeared first in the journal, “Science.” Essentially, what the scientists found was this: A free rat would rescue a trapped rat from a restrainer. A free rat would rescue the trapped one even when subsequent social contact was not possible. And when a free rat had to choose between chocolate and rescuing a trapped rat, the free rat would liberate the trapped rat and share the chocolate.

I first heard about this study on National Public Radio and shared it with Lisa Prescott when we were talking on Christmas Eve. I had forgotten that she views rats and mice as one step more terrifying than flesh-eating zombies with acid for blood. I went on and on about rats, sort of like those people who constantly tell pregnant women about their agonizingly difficult labors or that guy who can’t stop sharing his stories of turbulent flights with white-knuckle flyers. (Sadly, I am that guy.) She was patient and polite, but I had noticed she was growing a little pale as my wife gently reminded me that Lisa didn’t share my sudden interest in rats.

But this research fascinated me: It interested me because this might explain why my six cats have so little desire to track down and kill rodents. They must know that these smaller mammals are empathetic, too! Arguably, rats are more empathetic than some of my cats. (My cats might rescue a trapped peer over chocolate, but there is no way they would choose friendship over butter.)

But it also interested me as a person who believes that animals think and feel more deeply than we give them credit for. It is why, years ago, I became a vegetarian.

I still think the song, “Ben,” is creepy on just too many levels to recount here. But it’s reassuring to know that not all rats are finks.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on January 22, 2012. The movie based on his novel, “Secrets of Eden,” premieres on Lifetime Television on February 4.)

For Ronnie Simonsen, all the world was a stage

Ronnie Simonsen was not the sort of actor who was ever going to wind up on the cover of a tabloid because he polished off one too many glasses of merlot at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, and then punched out the paparazzi on his way to his tricked-out Escalade. Chances are you’ve never heard of him. But despite cerebral palsy he played Dexter Hopkins in “The Greatest Song Ever Written,” Captain Ron in “The Return of the Muskrats,” and Ron Everett in “Burning Like a Fire.”

He called himself a “working actor” and that became his mantra when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005 and, periodically over the next five years, was told by his physicians that his prognosis was bleak: “I’m a working actor,” he would tell the doctors, “I’m gonna lick this.”

And why wouldn’t he believe that? He’d been sick for huge chunks of his childhood, beating the odds in Boston hospitals and enduring multiple surgeries to increase his mobility. He watched soap operas for hours from his hospital bed and wrote fan letters to such TV stars as Chad Everett and Leslie Charleson. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that he gravitated to these actors: Everett starred in “Medical Center” and Charleson in “General Hospital.” And these actors, in turn, became friends with Simonsen. (Everett appeared with him in “Burning Like a Fire.”)

Simonsen lost his battle with leukemia in December 2010, a little over a year ago now, passing away at the age of 55.

Later this year, however, he may have a legacy as big as his heart: The Simonsen Theatre, a part of Zeno Mountain Farm, here in Lincoln, Vermont.

Particularly diligent readers of this column – a.k.a., those with way too much time on their hands – will recall that I wrote about Zeno Mountain Farm last July. Zeno is an extended family of friends who gather together for camps a half-dozen times each year. Half of the group has such disabilities as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, cognitive delays, and autism. They range in age from teens to senior citizens. The other half are the volunteer caregivers who do not have what most people would view as physical or mental limitations. The visionaries behind the camp are University of Vermont graduates Will and Peter Halby, and their spouses, Vanessa and Ila respectively. “The mission of the camp is to promote friendships between people with and without disabilities,” Peter told me last July.

When they congregate in Lincoln in the early part of the summer, they usually number about 70 people.

The group also gathers for camps in Guatemala, Florida, and California. No one pays or is paid to take part. The program is funded through the short films Zeno produces annually and then screens at fundraising premieres in a few major markets, as well as via smaller donations from supporters across the country. It is those movies that starred Ronnie Simonsen – a Zeno camper since the program’s inception.

But the camps transcend the movies. There are sports camps, art camps, and music camps. As big-hearted and clever as the movies might be, they are merely the means to feed the meter. When Zeno is in residence here in Lincoln in the summer, they produce a musical; but they also swim and hike and paint and celebrate the Fourth of July with epic floats for the Bristol parade.

Which brings me back to the Halby family’s goal of constructing a theatre for their program in Lincoln. In classic movie musical fashion – think Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney – the pair have bought a 19th-century railroad barn in Waterbury that nobody particularly wanted but also nobody wanted destroyed. It’s a relic from another era made from hand hewn spruce timbers, some 40 feet long. Waterbury residents will recall it was the old Station Lumber and Hardware. But it has been sitting empty for two years, and its owner, Pilgrim Partnership, agreed to donate it to Zeno Mountain Farm. Organic farmer and carpenter, Dave Quickel, is among the team currently disassembling it. “Everybody wins,” he said, because the barn will be preserved and put to a good use.

This spring Zeno plans to move it over the mountain to Lincoln, rebuild it on Zeno property, and transform it into the 3,200-square foot Simonsen Theatre.

“It will give us a place to hold our plays, but also our dances, classes, and fundraisers. It will be a place for us to go in the summer when it rains,” Peter said.

The total project, including the renovation, will cost about $350 thousand. So far, they have raised $150 thousand.

“Theatre is a great equalizer,” Will said. “Someone with a disability can bring so much to art. Ronnie was a fantastic actor because of his disability. He was so committed to every moment and every role.”

He also had a savant-like knowledge of those TV soaps he loved. “In Los Angeles,” Will recalled, “Ron once recognized someone who played a teenage junky in an episode of ‘Medical Center’ back in the 1970s. The actor was in his forties by then.”

And so while Ronnie will never have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the working actor may soon have something he would have wanted far more: A theatre his Zeno friends can use here in Lincoln.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on January 15, 2012. The movie based on Chris’s 2010 novel, “Secrets of Eden,” premieres on February 4 on Lifetime Television. It stars John Stamos and Anna Gunn.”)

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To learn more about Zeno Mountain Farm visit www.zenomountainfarm.org .

Why trolls see the glass as half-full

Last month, after an intense study of 200 young adults roughly 18 and 19 years old, researchers learned the following: Put a pretty girl in front of a guy for three minutes and he becomes a bonobo monkey. It doesn’t matter if he’s as homely as Homer Simpson: He’s going to convince himself he looks like Brad Pitt and the girl is as interested in him as he is in her.

Arguably, the results of this study could have been predicted. Discovering in this day and age that men in heat are morons is only slightly less newsworthy than figuring out that Oscar-nominated actresses don’t eat for the 17 days leading up to the Academy Awards or – not to put too fine a point on this – cleavage sells.

Here, in essence, is what happened in the study. Carin Perilloux, now a Williams College psychology professor, and Judith Easton and David Buss of the University of Texas, paired up about 200 straight male and female undergraduates in three-minute “speed-meeting” introductions. Prior to meeting, the subjects rated their own appearance. After the meeting, they rated the attractiveness of the person they met and that individual’s sexual interest in them.

Among the findings – and, in fact, there is actually quite a lot in the research that is indeed unexpected and interesting – are these two nuggets: The prettier a man found a woman, the more likely he was to believe she was sexually interested in him. Second, the less attractive guys were more likely than the handsome studs to believe that attractive women were drawn to them. The full study appears in “Psychological Science” magazine, though I read the highlights on msnbc.com, my source for all news about celebrity hook-ups, reality TV shows, and studies of an even remotely salacious nature.

Now, I have known that ugly guys will hit on hot girls my whole life – or at least since I hit on my wife when we were 18. (Discerning readers will note that we were precisely the age of many of the undergraduates in this study.) The researchers suggest this is logical from an evolutionary vantage point: Beauty is linked to fertility (octo-moms notwithstanding) and so Shrek will keep trying, knowing that eventually even he will get lucky.

Of course, it is also possible that pretty girls occasionally respond to trolls because they sense the troll’s confidence. Or doggedness. Perhaps from an evolutionary perspective, the beautiful woman sees a good provider in that gargoyle trying to pick her up. Make no mistake, I was no troll when I was 18, but I’ve seen the pictures: Bad haircut, bad eyeglasses, and a Cyrano de Bergerac beak. The girl I hit on when I was 18 was way out of my league. We’re talking Steve Buscemi sidling up to Blake Lively at the bar.

So, I asked my wife why she agreed to go out with me three decades ago, when I started hitting on her at a freshman mixer in college. “You were persistent,” she said. “You just tried so hard I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

In other words, determination was not a bad strategy on my part.

Of course, I am still not sure what gave me the confidence to approach her in the first place. The easy answer would be “beer.” But my sense is that there was more to it than that, and it does indeed go back to Perilloux’s completely delightful study. (I find any study “delightful” in which an ugly or nerdy guy gets the pretty girl.) Sometimes, a guy just has to access his inner bonobo monkey.

Or – to quote every chick flick and romantic comedy ever filmed – sometimes you just have to go for it.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on January 8, 2012. The paperback of Chris's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," arrives on April 24.)

A new year, a new leaf, a new app

Today is the day when we can all finally make a difference in this world. Today is the day when we can man up — and woman up — and decide we will be better people in 2012 than we were in 2011. We will, to paraphrase President Kennedy, ask not what this planet can do for us, but what we can do for this planet. Here are my New Year’s Resolutions for the coming year:

I will not run for president unless I know how many “unelected judges” there are on the Supreme Court. Last month, Republican candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry incorrectly referred to the eight judges on the court. So close, yet so far.

I will not run for any elected office in the United States if I have had a sleazy, tawdry extramarital escapade a la Arnold Schwarzenegger, Herman Cain or Anthony “Best Name Ever” Weiner. I will, however, run for an elected office in Europe, because admitting to having had a sleazy, tawdry extramarital escapade in Europe is the equivalent of adding a “no new taxes” pledge in America. Exhibit A? Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Exhibit B? Silvio Berlusconi.

I will invent a turd hockey cat app for the iPhone, because people who love cats can’t have too many cat apps on their iPhones. It will be the Angry Birds of 2012.

I will use teaspoons instead of soup spoons when I am bingeing on peanut butter straight from the jar.

I will write a screenplay with lead roles for Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian. I will not use my own name.

I will invent a line of Space Shuttle models and toys and books. I will sell them only at Borders.

I will be a Tiger Dad. Oh, wait, my daughter is 18. That bus has left. So, I will be a Tiger Dad to my cats. No more turd hockey. No more napping 23 and a half hours a day. No more playing with the dust bunnies they find under the stove. To paraphrase Florence and the Machine (who was quoting someone else), the cat days are over.

I will have no wardrobe malfunctions, which shouldn’t be a problem since it’s really hard for a guy to have a nipple slip … and, if it did happen in my case, no one would care.

I will use teaspoons instead of soup spoons when I am bingeing on ice cream straight from the pint.

I will bench-press 205 pounds. If I have a wardrobe malfunction nipple slip while lifting, I will forgive myself.

I will shop locally — though given how flat the planet has become, that includes buying things crafted, assembled, or spun in China, India and Tajikistan.

I will not tell people when I am watching Howard Stern on “America’s Got Talent.”

I will tell people I am watching BBC World News, even when I’m not.

I will use teaspoons instead of soup spoons when I am bingeing on sour cream straight from the container.

I will connect with friends and family and try to be present in their lives in a meaningful way … on Facebook. And Twitter.

I will write a letter. By hand. I will not mail it, however, because who really has time to address an envelope these days?

Now, will I be able to keep all of these resolutions? No idea. But I will try. In the meantime, be safe, be smart, and have a Happy New Year.

And remember: If you are ever asked how many Supreme Court justices we have and don’t know the answer, don’t ask Rick Perry. Ask Charlie Sheen.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on January 1, 2012.)

Burning the Christmas candle at both ends

Look, I know Santa just pulled an all-nighter, flew through serious turbulence over Iceland, and had to put up with – yet again – Prancer’s “attitude” that no one has yet to write a song about him. (You live on nothing but lichen between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and watch what happens to your temper.) But my great friend and the pastor of the United Church of Lincoln, David Wood, just performed four church services in 16 hours.

Yup. Four in 16. This is what happens when Christmas falls on a Sunday.

“From a spiritual point of view, I love it when Christmas comes on a Sunday. From a practical point of view, it’s terrifying,” David told me.

Specifically, last night there were three services at the church here in Lincoln. There was a 7:00 p.m. pageant for families – and this year the pageant was mighty impressive, with Saint Nicholas himself sharing the story of the Nativity. Then there was an 8:30 p.m. service that was more traditional, just as joyous, but at least marginally less raucous. Finally, at 11:30 p.m., there was the quiet, contemplative, communal service that ended shortly after midnight – on Christmas Day. And while the church’s youth pastor, Todd Goodyear, did the heaviest lifting at that very first service, David was still plenty involved.

In any case, after three services in five hours last night, David finally collapsed into bed about quarter to one on Christmas morning. . .and was back in the sanctuary today, preaching, ten hours later.

That workload might not daunt Santa, but it would most mortals.

It has always seemed to me that the majority of priests and ministers and rabbis and imams work incredibly hard. Certainly David does. To wit: I will never forget when my wife was in labor with our daughter a little over 18 years ago. When Grace arrived…so did David. The labor was 22 hours, but still he was there within forty minutes of Grace’s arrival. Two months ago, my wife had six hours of kidney surgery. I had told David about it the day before. Sure enough, there he was the next day at the hospital. And it’s not like my wife gets preferential treatment. (Given the number of Humane Society shelter cats she has tried to foist on David’s family, in point of fact he should be giving her a very wide berth.) He is always comforting someone or some family in hospitals in two counties. And then there are the funerals. And the christenings. And the baptisms. And the marriages. And the meetings. And the counseling. And the Yankees. (We all have our flaws.)

David has been the pastor here in Lincoln since 1979, so this is not the first time that Christmas has fallen on a Sunday on his watch. He knows what to expect: “Everything speeds up. Nothing slows down.” Consequently, he had his sermons done weeks ahead of time. He had a plan in place to get the props from the pageant removed from the sanctuary in time for the 8:30 service. And, once again, he made sure that all six church fire extinguishers were distributed discretely to volunteer firefighters before that first Christmas Eve service, since it would end with the congregation – including the children – raising and lowering lit candles while we all sang “Silent Night.”

But despite the borderline bedlam that can mark this time of the year for us all, he tries not to lose sight of the blessings that come with that chaos. “What is most special for me every Sunday, but even more as we approach Christmas and Easter, is the realization that I get to speak the good news to people. Christian faith isn’t about rules and regulations, it is about our relationship with a God who loves us enough to choose to be with us.”

Indeed. So, while I remain impressed as heck with what Santa Claus and his reindeer just pulled off, I am mighty grateful as well for the work of David Wood and his peers.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Peace.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on December 25, 2011. Chris's next novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," arrives in the autumn of 2012.)

Perhaps pulp is not fiction just yet (or why a paper book makes a nearly gift)

Digital books do not merely change how we read, they change how we give.

I mention this because Christmas is but a week away and Hanukkah a mere two days. In past years, this time of the year has meant serious last-minute holiday shopping for me at a bookstore, wandering quite happily among the tables and shelves in search of books made of paper for family and friends.

And it will mean that again this week, though the number of paper books I buy will have decreased because the number of people in my immediate world who now read largely on an eReader or tablet has increased. Also, it will have decreased because a number of people in my immediate world no longer read. They're either dead or they've been seduced by "Dancing with the Stars." But that's another issue.

Nevertheless, a paper book remains a wonderful gift -- and a wonderful last-minute gift. I'm a novelist and so obviously that sounds unbelievably self-serving. Trust me, it is. I have a daughter in college and an 1898 house that retains heat like a sieve: Whoever built it owned stock in an oil or natural gas company.

But equally as obvious is the reality that my books sell on eReaders and tablets, too, so my affection for paper books is not entirely self-interest. The fact is a paper book is a nearly perfect present. It is deeply personal and can reflect the recipient's interests. My late mother-in-law loved historical biographies; her brother -- my wife's uncle -- is riveted by military history. And about the only thing my digitally savvy 18-year-old daughter does not do on her phone or computer is read literary fiction. She still prefers paper books when it comes to the novel.

Moreover, you do not need to worry about size when you buy a person a book. One size really does fit all. And if you misjudged someone's taste, it is incredibly easy to return a book -- and not worry that it is has been marked down in the days immediately after Christmas and Hanukkah.

And, finally, there is this: We still have a totemic connection to books. To pulp. To dust jackets. When we see a cover or hold in our hands a book we once cherished, we do not merely recall a detail of the plot or a snippet of dialogue: We remember where we were -- and, yes, who we were -- when we first savored that particular story. William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" catapults me instantly back to the Hialeah-Miami Lakes Public Library and I am once again 14 years old. Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" is a snowstorm in March 1993 and the wondrous news that my wife is going to have a baby.

It's not unlike our idiosyncratic, profoundly complex relationship to music and the songs that breathe life into memory.

This year there were some new books I particularly loved and can recommend: "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach, a first novel with parallel love stories set against small college baseball; "The Last Werewolf," by Glenn Duncan, the tale of (yes) the last werewolf on earth, an eloquent and good-humored soul who simply has to eviscerate and eat a human once a month; "The House in France," Gully Wells' memoir of her wildly eccentric and urbane parents on two continents; and Tom Perrotta's "The Leftovers," an exploration of what the world might look like a few years after the Rapture -- or something like the Rapture -- when the folks who remain once more are dining at Applebee's and playing Little League baseball.

The truth is, I understand as well as anyone that the digital genie is out of the bottle. I respect digital reading devices, just as I respect my smart phone. I simply believe that paper books make wonderful gifts and am mighty glad there are still bookstores around. So, big props and happy holidays to those booksellers who are still fighting the good fight on behalf of pulp -- and can help me find the perfect gifts for family and friends.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on December 18, 2011. Chris Bohjalian's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," was published in October.)