Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 33

#BookADayUK 22: Out of print, or Cousin Harry

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not the first writer in my family. Certainly not the best known or most successful, either. Both of those accolades would have to go to Harry.

I never met Harry, my maternal grandmother’s cousin, before he died in 1986 of emphysema (don’t smoke, kids). I didn’t even know what he looked like until I found this photo online; I can see a family resemblance. I did hear stories about him, most of which revolved around his having a lot of ex-wives, drinking, and on one occasion, dropping the Thanksgiving turkey on the kitchen floor.

Although I’m not sure, I could be conflating my Harrys on that last story.

I do know he eventually went to California and had success as a screenwriter, writing or co-writing scripts including A Place in the Sun (for which he won an Oscar) and Ocean’s Eleven. Before that, though, he wrote a novel, which I don’t think is in print anymore, making it a candidate for today’s #BookADayUK prompt:

With A Walk in the Sun, Harry Brown tells an understated yet gripping and realistic tale of the randomness and impersonal nature of combat. In the Allied landings at Salerno on the Italian peninsula during World War II, a fictional platoon loses its lieutenant and senior sergeant to enemy fire, regroups inland to decide what to do, and soon loses its next-senior NCO to battle fatigue. This short but intense novel follows the remaining members of the platoon as they attempt to ascertain their mission and carry it out based on the only guide they have, a map found on the lieutenant’s body. The day unfolds from there—as simple as a walk in the sun, as simple, really, as war sometimes is. Some make it, some don’t, and those who don’t aren’t always dead. Brown’s spare narration echoes the gritty realities his characters face and provides an unflinching portrayal of the uncertainty of war.

That one may still be available, but I’m somewhat more certain that his novel The Stars in Their Courses is out of print. I haven’t read either one, but I did just place A Walk in the Sun on hold at the library, so I’ll be correcting that oversight soon.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write a screenplay, but hey, something to aspire to!

#BookADayUK 21: Summer read

Lord, how I loathe summer.

I suppose I should clarify: I’m not a fan of summer weather. Today, for example, is the first day of summer, and here in St. Louis it’s 30 degrees (Celcius—that’s 86 Fahrenheit for my fellow Americans) with a projected high of 34/94 and a current relative humidity of about eleventy billion percent. I went for a 10K run this morning, and it was like running straight into a warm, wet slap with a washcloth. Repeatedly.

But anyway.

One thing I do like about summer is summer reads. Normally, I’d say “beach reads,” but there’s nary a beach in sight here in the Midwest. Reading on Tower Beach back in Vancouver quickly became a favourite pastime for me—and a surefire way to get a sunburn.

This summer, I’m reading a lot of young-adult fiction, for a couple of reasons. One is that I enjoy it in general (you might have gotten that idea based on my reaction to Ruth Graham’s snarkitude on Slate). Another reason is that I’m going to be leading a workshop in writing YA this fall for the continuing education department of St. Louis Community College. So, I want to make sure I’m as widely read as possible.

Which brings us to today’s #BookADayUK prompt from The Borough Press. I’m taking a page from my friend ’Nathan‘s book on this one (and as I frequently do), in that I’m going to talk about a summer read that I almost literally just finished reading, Juliann Rich’s Caught in the Crossfire.

Two boys at Bible camp; one forbidden love.

That is the dilemma sixteen-year-old Jonathan Cooper faces when he goes away to Spirit Lake Bible Camp, an oasis for teen believers situated along Minnesota’s rugged north shore. He is expecting a summer of mosquito bites, bonfires with s’mores, and photography classes with Simon, his favorite counselor, who always helps Jonathan see his life in perfect focus.

What he isn’t expecting is Ian McGuire, a new camper who openly argues against phrases like pray the gay away. Ian is certain of many things, including what could happen between them if only Jonathan could surrender to his feelings. Jonathan, however, tosses in a storm of indecision between his belief in God and his inability to stay away from Ian. When a real storm hits and Ian is lost in it, Jonathan is forced to make a public decision that changes his life. (from Goodreads)

This story is outside of my own experience in so many ways—I’m not a person of faith (unless faith in Kylie Minogue counts), and I never went to summer camp as a kid. I suspect we probably couldn’t have afforded it, and perhaps also my parents didn’t want to put us through that. (Instead, I had to suffer through little league for two years, an experience that did more to turn me off of participation in team sports than anything else.) I have no doubt, however, that it’s all too familiar to many kids—and that’s why it’s important that everyone be able to find their experience in the fiction they read, I think. It’s a way of reassuring them that no, they’re not alone, and they’ll get through this. Rich’s story resists easy answers and doesn’t wrap everything up neatly, a trait that I enjoy in the stories I read as well as the stories I write. I’m looking forward to the second book in the series.

#BookADayUK 20: Favourite cover

(Psst, hey Ruth: did you notice the “u” in the title?)

Remember how I mentioned yesterday that I worry about repeating myself? Well, I think I said something about not judging a book by its cover in one of these #BookADayUK prompts, and now here I am, judging a book, if not by its cover, then at least judging its cover.

This is a tricky one for me because a) I don’t often pay attention to a cover when I’m considering which books to read, and b) I love a gorgeous book cover, which appeals to my previous life as a graphic designer. (I say “previous” but it’s still part of my current reality, especially as I’m doing some design work for the Swoon reading series in Vancouver, which reminds me of something that’s lingering on my to-do list, but that’s a story for another day.) Anyway, there are a number of covers that I love, either because they’re done on wonderful paper or they feature a fantastic photograph or a beautiful painting or are embossed or have spot varnish or foil stamping.

My big weakness? Soft-touch aqueous coating. On the right paper, it creates a texture that feels like a flower petal. It has a matte look so you’re not expecting anything special until you pick it up, and then it’s just this gorgeous surprise.

So, there are two book covers I’m going to mention, neither of which has any of the special printing bells and whistles, but one features a gorgeous photo, and the other is a fantastic painting.

On the orders of his boyhood friend, now King Philip of Macedon, Aristotle postpones his dreams of succeeding Plato as leader of the Academy in Athens and reluctantly arrives in the Macedonian capital of Pella to tutor the king’s adolescent sons. An early illness has left one son with the intellect of a child; the other is destined for greatness but struggles between a keen mind that craves instruction and the pressures of a society that demands his prowess as a soldier. 

Initially Aristotle hopes for a short stay in what he considers the brutal backwater of his childhood. But, as a man of relentless curiosity and reason, Aristotle warms to the challenge of instructing his young charges, particularly Alexander, in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit, an engaged, questioning mind coupled with a unique sense of position and destiny. (from Goodreads)

I love the photo on the cover of Annabel Lyon‘s The Golden Mean. If I recall correctly, it was a bit controversial when it was first released, because a variant cover was later produced, which is also gorgeous but has a different quality from the dreamlike feeling this evokes. Full disclosure: Annabel was a reader on my thesis and someone I absolutely adore and respect so my opinion is hardly unbiased, but this book is fantastic. Go read it. Right now.

My other favourite cover is a different animal entirely. (Ha, see what I did there? There’s a horse on the cover of The Golden Mean and on this cover there’s—well, anyway.)

From the beloved creator of The Snowman comes an enchanting big book featuring 124 beautiful pastel illustration panels. A huge, snowy white bear arrives mysteriously one cold winter night and crawls into bed with Tilly. The next morning, Tilly sets about making her polar bear friend welcome and excitedly reports her progress in “civilizing” him to her bemused parents. They are sure Tilly has an imaginary friend. But is he imaginary? Whether or not, his story is irresistible. (from Goodreads)

During my MFA studies at UBC, I took a class on Writing for Children with Rhea Tregebov (also wonderful!). I took a stab at a picture book, and one of the things she mentioned to the class was that the Education Library has a vast collection of picture books. Take 45 minutes or an hour and you can get through a lot of picture books, and it’s a lot of fun. So I did just that. I read a lot of Clifford the Big Red Dog, but this book by Raymond Briggs was probably my favourite. The artwork throughout has this softness to it that’s captivating and for me evokes the feeling of snow. And the idea of a polar bear crawling through my window, something that would normally be fearsome and frightening, is rendered charming and cozy (but far from sanitized—read the book and you’ll know what I mean).

#BookADayUK 19: Still can’t stop talking about it

My biggest worry is that I’m going to repeat myself. I mean that in a general sense, as well as with the #BookADayUK prompts. I should have at least 30 books that readily come to mind, I figure, before I find I’m repeating them. But forgetfulness has always been a problem for me where books are concerned; I have the hardest time remembering what I’ve read.

However, for today’s prompt, if I interpret “still can’t stop talking about it” as “still can’t stop recommending it to my friends,” that would be Tayari Jones’s magnificent Silver Sparrow:

With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist, author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle.

Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families;the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed one of the most important writers of her generation (the Atlanta Journal Constitution)

This is the book I recommended to my friend Andy, to my friends in Vancouver, pretty much to anyone who will listen. Consider me a fan. This was the first of Jones’s books that I read, and afterward I devoured Leaving Atlanta. (I haven’t yet read The Untelling, but it’s on my to-read list.) Jones is also working on a fourth novel, and I can’t wait.

#BookADayUK 18: Bought on a recommendation

If there’s anything I love more than bookstores, it’s the people who work in them. And not just because they’re the people who put my books in people’s hands and say “I think you’ll like this.” Although I do like that about them, a lot. I like it just as much when they do the same thing to me. Take one of the folks at Left Bank Books. A couple years ago, when I was in the store to do the Authors as Booksellers day thing, a woman named Danielle picked up this book and said, “When you said you loved The Great Gatsby, I thought you might enjoy this.” And she was right. The Rules of Civility was a combination of Jazz-Age Fitzgerald meets Donna Tartt or Brett Easton Ellis.

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast–rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne’er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is a ahead of her time,and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets.

So, if your bookseller says she thinks you might like something, listen to her. She’s probably right.

#BookADayUK 17: A future classic

(Yikes, I forgot to post this yesterday! So, you’ll be seeing double today when I post #BookADayUK 18 later—assuming I don’t forget to post that as well.)

I was just reading an article related to this topic the other day. It was in Vanity Fair about Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (disclosure: I haven’t read it—yet) and about how a lot of snobby critics with their hifalutin’ attitudes are all, “Well, it’s no classic.” Hmm, jealous much, girls?

Since I haven’t read it, I certainly don’t know whether The Goldfinch is classic caliber, but here’s the thing: neither do any of the critics who’ve read it. Leave that to the future, kids. The best we can do is guess and, perhaps, hope.

So, given today’s #BookADayUK prompt from The Borough Press, here’s my pick for what I hope will be a future classic:

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be. (from Goodreads)

My friend Lindy recommended Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe to me. “If the book you wrote and the book I’m writing had a love child, it would be this book,” she said. And I think she’s right. There’s nothing supernatural or otherworldly about it (there are no Amazons, for the record), but everything about it is magic. It’s one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

And while I’ve said before that I don’t judge a book by the cover, this one is simply gorgeous.

#BookADayUK 16: Can’t believe more people haven’t read it

My own book. (Kidding! So kidding.) But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We’re kind of spoiled by today’s reading environment (I’m not sure what to call it; environment sounds weird but if I come up with a better word I’ll change it). There are so many books to choose from, and sometimes it’s hard to know what to pick. Print books, e-books, major publishers, small presses, self-publishing—it’s actually more amazing to me that people manage to find a book they’d like to read.

So, for today’s #BookADayUK prompt from The Borough Press, rather than picking a book I can’t believe more people haven’t read, here’s a book that I think people would like to read if they find it: Missouri, by Christine Wunnicke. Originally written in German, it’s available in English from Vancouver’s Arsenal Pulp Press:

This earnest, violent, yet utterly transfixing gay love story is set in the nineteenth-century American Midwest. Douglas Fortescue is a successful poet who flees England for America following a scandal; Joshua Jenkins is a feral young outlaw who was taught how to shoot a man at age six. The two men meet when Joshua robs Douglas’ carriage and takes him hostage; soon, a remarkable secret is revealed, and these two very different men grow closer, even as Douglas’ brother tries to “save” him from his uncivilized surroundings. (from Goodreads)

I think I recall hearing about this book on Twitter, and the good folks at Arsenal Pulp sent me a copy of it. It’s been a while since I read it, but it was short and bizarre (in the best possible meaning of the word) and thoroughly enjoyable, with a terse and yet dreamlike quality to the prose that felt not quite real. I think I need to go back and re-read it, and it’s such a short book that it can easily be tackled in an afternoon, though I think it will require much longer to think about.

#BookADay 15: Favourite fictional dad

(You’ll notice a few extra u’s and some s’s where you might expect z’s lately. This is a bit of a nod to my friend Ruth Daniell, a poet I met through grad school in Vancouver who at one point said “Come back to Canada! You’ve been away too long. You’re already dropping the u’s in words like “‘neighbour.’” Hence, “favourite” instead of “favorite.” I think my friend ’Nathan will also appreciate this, as any time he submits a manuscript to an American publication these are considerations for him.

(Also, the proper pronunciation of the letter Z is, apparently, not “zee” but “zed.” Those whacky Canadians. But, moving along….)

It’s Father’s Day, which is a complicated day for folks who have a) issues with patriarchy or b) troubled relationships with their dads. While I may have a little of both, I don’t have the latter, and I love my dad. When you come out to your lifelong career-Marine dad and his biggest concern is that you held onto the burden of your secret for so long, that says something.

Favourite fictional dad, though? It seems like almost every day I’m saying that today’s #BookADayUK prompt from The Borough Press has got me stumped. Maybe it’s because fathers tend to get a bad rap in literature, particularly in YA. They’re either absentee or oblivious if they’re not actively antagonistic toward their children’s goals.

I’m not going to make this a “not all dads” thing, because you know how well that goes over. But! I’m stumped as far as great literary dads—Atticus Finch? Clearly loved his daughter, but his views on race, seen from the prism of decades later, are complicated, at best.

So, I want to do something different! I want to find more great dads in fiction—and I hope you’ll point me in the right direction. Leave your suggestions in the comments. I would love to add to my to-read list. Thanks!

#BookADayUK 14: An old favourite

Since I already mentioned The Great Gatsby in a previous installment, today’s #BookADayUK prompt from The Borough Press makes me think of a more recent favourite novel.

When my friend Todd recommended this book to me, he said, “Call me as soon as you get to the end, because you will be screaming.” Yes, it was a bit of a “twist” novel, but unlike an M. Night Shyamalan film, the twist at the end of this novel was much more satisfying. And Todd was right: as soon as I got to the end of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Hours, I called him and said, “Aaaaaah! I can’t believe it!”

In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf’s last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family. (From Goodreads)

I read this novel before I ever took a stab at Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I failed on my first attempt with the classic to which Cunningham’s novel pays homage, but on my second read, I realized what my error had been: Mrs. Dalloway works best if it’s read in one sitting. It’s a short enough novel that this is possible, and indeed, it works best as a means of immersing yourself in Clarissa Dalloway’s day. As Nicole Kidman’s Woolf says in the film: “A woman’s whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.”

#BookADayUK 13: Makes me laugh

It was only a matter of time before Rob Byrnes appeared on this list.

Allow me to back up a bit. Rob Byrnes is pretty much the reason I got published for the first time. He’s the one who passed along to me the call for submissions to an anthology of essays about gay men and their dogs. That anthology was Paws and Reflect, which both I and Michael were published in.

So, I owe Rob going way back. I’ve been lucky also to be an early reader on a couple of his novels. That was less me returning the favour as me getting a sneak peak before the book landed on shelves. He’s been an exceedingly generous friend ever since. (He’s also bad for my liver, but that’s a different story entirely.)

Rob is also a hilarious writer, so when I saw Borough Press‘s #BookADayUK prompt for today, “Makes me laugh,” there was really only one answer to that question. It is, however, a multipart answer, starting with The Night We Met and continuing through to Strange Bedfellows, his last entry in his Donald Westlake-inspired series of capers featuring Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca and their ragtag gang of criminals that can’t do anything straight:

If politics makes for strange bedfellows, perhaps no bedfellows are stranger than Grant Lambert and Austin Peebles.

Austin Peebles is a professional politician with a problem: a prominent rightwing blogger has come into possession of a compromising cell phone photo of the congressional candidate… an image that could derail his campaign.

Enter Grant Lambert—a professional criminal who lives so far below society’s radar he’s never even registered to vote—and his partner in life and crime, Chase LaMarca. If Grant and Chase can make the picture disappear, they’ll make a cool $50,000. It sounds like easy money to the cash-strapped criminals, but then more pictures turn up, the double- and triple-crosses begin, and Grant, Chase, and their gang of gay and lesbian confederates find themselves immersed in the brutal sport of politics, as the stakes grow larger and the bedfellows get stranger and stranger… (from Goodreads)

I look forward to many more laughs at Rob’s expense—er, I mean to Rob’s credit—in the future.