Colleen Mondor's Blog, page 33

Standing stones trump vampires any day

In anticipation of the upcoming rerelease of several Diana Wynne Jones titles, I am reviewing Fire & Hemlock, one of my all time favorite DWJ books, for my April column. FIre & Hemlock is a modern retelling of the "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer" ballads and opens with Oxford student Polly realizing she has blocked out a significant part of her past. Through a long series of flashbacks she recalls her lost memories and then, in the book's final section, discovers her connection to the old ballads and understands how her life has taken a decidedly mythic (and dangerous) turn.

I read Fire & Hemlock on the heels of another mythic fiction title, The China Garden by Liz Berry (sadly it's out of print). In that novel, Clare is spending her last summer at home before college when her widowed mother surprises her by announcing she has taken a home health care position with an elderly man in the distant village where her family is from. She expects Clare to stay in London with friends but something compels Clare to dig in her heels and insist on going along. Once they arrive she learns that everything she thought she knew about her mother was incorrect and the entire village knows all about Clare and there is an expectation that she will contribute to the area's rejuvenation. Clare has no idea what is going on but bit by bit she learns that her bloodline, and specifically she herself, is critical to everyone. There is a movement to sell critical land for the storage of nuclear waste, (could there be a greater metaphor for poisoning the land?) and Clare is the one to stop it. She has no idea how (or why it is her) but as the pages unfold and the mystery is revealed and Berry shares clues about standing stones, maze construction and even the story of Demeter and Persephone, readers begin to realize that this novel is about old myths, not something of recent construction like so much current teen fantasy. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

In sharp contrast to paranormal fantasy, Mythic fiction hearkens back across centuries. It challenges us on what we believe both as a culture and personally. Coming from an Irish family which is, by habit, rooted deep in superstitions both social and religious (don't even talk to me about St Patrick), I found a lot of both The China Garden and Fire & Hemlock to be quite affecting. These books reminded me of what I find lacking in a lot of modern paranormal titles for teens. For all the thrills and chills with zombies or bloodsuckers or, on the flip side, dystopian nightmares, those titles just don't seem to have staying power for me. When you read DWJ and Berry you realize how old stories have a special resonance and power. No one thinks Twilight will come true but read about standing stones in The China Garden and you wonder because we still don't know why those stones are out here with us or what their power is.

I love both of these books and strongly recommend them. Here's hoping The China Garden will someday enjoy the reissuing attention that some of DWJ's greats will receive in April (More on that as the books appear.)

[Post pic of Stonehenge in winter taken by Reuters.]

Dear Authors: No more post-vomit kissing scenes, please

I am reading Winter Town right now for my May column and there is a scene that gave me serious pause. The protagonists are two teens who grew up together and have come to a point where their long friendship is transitioning to romance. Okay, that's pretty standard in the YA world. Lucy is going through a rough time and Evan is there for her, just like he has always been. In fact, they share a tender moment after Evan helps Lucy through a particularly awkward moment when she is visiting his house for Christmas and, either because she has been drinking or she is bulimic or she is just completely stressed out, Lucy races to the bathroom so she can spend a few minutes throwing up. Evan is sympathetic, Evan is concerned, Evan looks at Lucy and Lucy looks at Evan and they kiss.

She apologizes for throwing up first, of course.

In my vast experience with vomiting (both my own and others) I have never, not once, seen a moment where someone feels overwhelmed with passion after throwing up. And honestly if the vomiter did feel that way, I can't see who on earth would want to kiss them in that moment. Seriously. IT'S NOT SEXY AND WE ALL KNOW IT.

What annoys me so much about this is that as a reader, it derails me from the narrative in a major way. I'm reading along, wondering what is going on with Lucy, how many times Evan will have to get hit over the head before he realizes he has a crush on her and then, well, then all I can think about is how disgusting it would be to put your tongue inside the mouth of someone else mere moments after they were done throwing up. Just like that Lucy and Evan are dead to me. Clearly there is no way I could possibly identify with them - I find vomit to be unpleasant (and sometimes nausea inducing when it is done right in front of you) and yet these these two characters are apparently able to be turned on by it. (Okay, that isn't fair but you get my point.)

Winter Town is not the first book to have a scene like this one but after reading it last night I just had enough. I will return to the book and finish it and review it and not beat the author up (much) over this scene but I felt compelled to draw a line in the sand here. Vomit is not about romance, folks, and we really need to stop pretending that it ever could be. Really. Let the girl go home, brush her teeth and clean up before she kisses someone. PLEASE.

Elizabethan gardens (with a nod to Victoria Holt)

[image error]

I received a very unique book for review a couple of months ago, Queen Elizabeth in the Garden by Trea Martyn. The author is a garden historian (which is one of my new dream jobs) and the book is an exploration of the great gardens of the Elizabethan era. Lest you think this is all about landscape design, the subtitle is "A Story of Love, Rivalry and Spectacular Gardens". As it turns out, the story of Elizabethan gardens is also about those who sought to impress Elizabeth and the two men who were closest to her - the love of her life Robert Dudley and William Cecil her chief political adviser - were the ones most determined to do so. The plot, as they say, thickens. Martyn isn't writing only about historic garden design (but man does she deliver on that score) but also all the machinations going on around the throne for Elizabeth's favor. You will never look at party planning again after you see what these men were willing to do to be on their queen's good side.

I first remember reading about Elizabeth and Dudley in Victoria Holt's My Enemy the Queen which is about Dudley's second wife (the woman he married after it became clear that Elizabeth, while loving him, was not going to marry anybody). I read every single Holt book when I was in junior high and loved them. And for everyone who thinks gothic romance is a waste of time, well, when I picked up this strong nonfiction title on Elizabeth, I completely knew what was going on with all the major players because of the Holt I read 25+ (cringe) years ago. Pretty cool, eh?

I'm going to write a thorough review of Queen Elizabeth in the Garden, probably with another garden title I'm reading, but I wanted to recommend it quickly now as a scholarly title that manages to be entertaining, just gossipy enough and yet enormously informative on a topic that most of us know very little. I wish Martyn would write a long essay on researching it - she does have a wonderful final chapter in the book about places she visited and what she learned but honestly, it just made me want to know more! The work she has done here is so impressive - can you imagine deciding to write about gardens that have not existed for hundreds of years? Her dedication is just amazing. I really wanted to know more about her sitting in those libraries and going over old plans and talking to librarians. Of course that should tell you how compelling this book is - Trea Martyn makes you want to learn more about Elizabeth and Dudley and what might have been said (or done) and how he and Cecil created those magical places. The most bittersweet part of the book is that we will never know how beautiful the gardens were; there are no Elizabethan gardens left in England. Martyn went to Italy (where gardens from that era survive) so she could an idea of what they were like.

Is it crazy that I get kinda sad just thinking about that?

[Post pic of a garden I think is just amazing - Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC.]

On men and planes

I have many things I have to write. This does not include the next book, or the fun book project that is not the next book but a sensible diversion when stuck on the next book, or the short story which is following the other story that is done but needs tweaking. No, none of those things are what this is about as I have many things I have to write for MAP. The next few months are all in service to MAP and while I guerilla market appropriate publications with PR postcards (all of which have wicked cool Alaskany pics on one side and quotes & book info on the other), well, I also have to write many essays. So that's what I'm doing and here are the subjects I'm noodling with:

1. Nome - as in, Nome is dealing with a new gold rush while also having a unique aviation history and the location of the furthest north prison in the US. (We used to fly prisoners in there.) (I'm not making that up.)

2. "Testostereality" or Alaska as reality tv sees it as opposed to how I know it. (To include the information of a mid-air collision caused by a former co-worker who always believed he was a bigger man than anyone else but managed to kill himself and two innocent guys in the other aircraft in a totally preventable accident.)

3. The awkward and yet predictable phone conversations with the guys you wrote about in your book. I just had one last night, it started with "you made me sound like an asshole". The conversation before that (from another friend) was "you made me sound pathetic". In both cases they found the parts of the book not about them to be very affecting and true. I had to talk them through why I found the parts written about them to be true however. (For the record I don't think these guys are pathetic or assholes, and no one else has felt that way either.) (Still. Not easy conversations for sure.)

4. The search for an Alaskan aviation writer from decades ago. This person will remain unnamed because I want to be the one to write about them. I also won't be writing this until I get into the UAF archives this summer. (Here's hoping I find what I'm looking for.)

5. And I'm trying to find my way into writing about researching aviation in Alaska archives. It is such a major topic in the state and has sustained itself as such over the years. So so soooo many articles in newspapers, magazines and journals and so many of them about heroic pilots who gave their lives for the state. It's a fascinating peek at a fairly unique culture but I have to figure out to write this in a way that makes it relevant to folks anywhere. Still working on that, but not giving up.

So three nailed down for sure, one that requires research but will be very cool if I find what I need (the idea is firm) and one that is nebulous but has possibilities. Two are already in process - stalled on Nome needing some facts, but will get those this weekend, in the meantime have worked on another.

On a completely unrelated note, I have an essay mapped out on Kerouac and my family and what it means to be a French Canadian in America. But this has nothing to do with MAP so it languishes at the moment. It shall be lovely when it has its turn though, promise.

"Sweet Home Chicago" - White House style

First, this looks like the coolest party ever (B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck - the mind reels at the coolness factor!) but most importantly, the President can really sing!!!

Just watch - guaranteed to make you smile!

"...a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered."

1. Radium-Age re-releases! The author list includes Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard. These look fantastic.

2. Same Difference is a bit of a meandering "Reality Bites" sort of coming-of-age for college kids with appropriate sexual innuendo and panic over life descending upon you with a sudden and scary speed. I love the cover in a big way - the fish are from the opening pages which are set in a Korean restaurant with an aquarium. If it was faced out on a shelf it would certainly stand out.

3. Speak is reissuing Sara Ryan's stunning and life-changing Empress of the World. The new volume includes an introduction by David Levithan and three short graphic novels about the characters. I have the comics and they are great - fans of Battle and Katrina and crew will be delighted. If you somehow missed this one the first time out, be sure to grab it now. (I'm linking to amazon because it is the only site that shows the new cover with the Levithan intro. I'm kinda worried about other sites - Powells & Indiebound- as they show the old cover. All of them have the old page count. I'm hoping this is just the book as it is now since the ISBN has not changed. But just make sure!!)

4. Author Vanessa Veselka gave an interview to the magazine at Reed College. Her closing thoughts are quite amazing: I really believe it is better to try to do something really big and leap into failure, than to constantly stay on the side of irony," she says. "Failure expresses our desires in such an open, vulnerable way.

The piece has a nice overview of her book, ZAZEN, which I also found very affecting.

5. I dearly hope Barbara Follett ran away, reinvented herself and lived a long and creative and wonderful life. Her story is the stuff of novels and I found the new website about her (created by her nephew) to be outstanding. If you need inspiration, go read about this fascinating author who simply vanished one day in 1939. (Link via Sharyn November who never disappoints.)

6. I am....trying to get my act together. Seems like I type something like that here all the time, don't I? Sigh.

[Post title is the definition of "Radium-Age" - OF COURSE!]

"I should have factored in the general atmosphere of being in a country that looked like the set for a zombie remake of the Shackleton voyage."

Elizabeth Hand's Available Dark is a return to her Cass Neary character from the dark and devastating Generation Loss. Cass, a one time photography wunderkid lives with an epic level of depression and anger that colors every aspect of her existence. She eeks out a living mostly on small jobs due to her past fame and gets through the day with a variety of alcohol and prescription medication. She is leather jacket and boots toughness, a Patti Smith who never found the love of Fred Smith. Cass lives in dark places - she revels in dark places - and Liz Hand not only embraces these aspects of her character, she delights in them. Generation Loss took Cass to Maine and a run-in with a serial killer, in Available Dark she travels first to Helsinki and then Iceland where she finds more death, more depravity and yet ultimately a wee bit of redemption.

But don't worry, little fuzzy bunny moments are nowhere in sight.

Lots of folks (especially crime writers) are reviewing Available Dark quite highly (it received a star from Booklist) but what I wanted to write about was how well Liz captures winter in a northern place. This is not an easy thing to do, not without getting romantic and cozy. I don't want to suggest that we don't enjoy our sledding and hot chocolate moments in the north but in the far north, in places where winter means not just cold and ice and snow but months of grayness punctuated only with complete darkness, winter is a whole other beast. There is a reason that Alaska leads the country in (per capita) suicide, rape, alcoholism and domestic violence. Long cold winters make people crazy and when you are miles from the world - thousands of miles in fact - then the crazy can get pretty damn hard to escape from.

In Available Dark, Cass finds not only the long winter in Iceland but also a crippling depression brought on by the nation's economic collapse. This has removed all the cheer from the region - all the hopefulness that usually gets people through the winter. In Fairbanks we have lots of festivals and bazaars and sporting events - something is pretty much always happening in the winter - but the best way to really overcome the winter is to have a job waiting for you everyday. It might be dark out when you get there and dark when you leave but the job is still the same, summer or winter, and so work goes a long way toward keeping you going. Losing the jobs, well that leaves a whole lot of hours in the day to fill and when it is 30 and 40 below you are not going to fill them outside.

That's when four walls will overwhelm you and many bad things can happen.



Available Dark reminded me of Smilla's Sense of Snow, which I read years ago in college as part of a "Literature of the North" course. (For all the kinky macabre of Available Dark, where collecting photos of dead people plays a big part of the plot, it would have fit perfectly in that course.) There is a similar sense of hopelessness that permeates the narrative; a bleakness that makes the text so brittle that readers get the feeling it could fall to pieces in an instant. Winter in the Far North is so harsh - so unbelievable cruel - that standing in it you feel as if you could shatter. I know that sounds like hyperbole but it is true. Wicked things live in that kind of cold and dark, wicked things call it home. For all that you still shop at Safeway and go to the post office and pick up the kids from school, there are moments in that winter where you find yourself surrounded by a silence and a cold that comes through to the bone. It's not beautiful, it just is and you survive only if you are very careful every single minute.

In Available Dark Cass finds herself at the center of a bad and bloody business, an innocent (which is shocking because there is nothing innocent about her), and a very potential victim. There are so many different kinds of darkness bearing down on her, so many ways in which it wants to eat her alive. And even though Cass and I are not at all alike and even though I have never been to Iceland or immersed myself in the murderous subculture she discovers, I feel that I know her story well. It is not pretty and it is not sweet, but still, what a powerful thing it is - what a pure and truly powerful thing is this literary winter.

[Post pic: Another day on the job in AK - at 2:30 in the AFTERNOON!!] [Post title is a line from "Available Dark".]

If we could all be as cool as Paul McCartney the world would be a better place

What I learned watching the Grammys last night:

1. Adele can sing. REALLY sing.

2. LL Cool J is charming. He needs to host the Oscars.

3. The Foo Fighters remind me more and more of Nirvana everyday. (Which is totally okay.) Also, Dave Grohl's acceptance speech was the best of the night. One can only hope his point was received by teen rocker wanna bes everywhere.

4. Glen Campbell deserved this moment and I'm glad they gave it to him while he could still appreciate and remember it.

5. Chris Brown can dance but I was unimpressed by his singing. Also, nice to see that the Grammys will love you forever even after you beat the crap out of your girlfriend. (And all those tweets from women offering to be beaten by him are just downright horrible.)

6. Bruce Springsteen. Yes.

7. While I am a big fan of the Decembrists and also appreciate Mumford and Sons, someone needs to explain to me how they are considered Rock performers. How do they end up in the same category as The Foo Fighters? Can't they just move the Americana category to the main telecast and let Rock be Rock?

8. Adele can sing. (It bears repeating.)

9. The clip of Whitney proved that she can sing better than 99% of the new acts out there today. (Don't even get me started on Katy Perry. Or Rhianna or the Nicki person.)

10. Bonnie Raitt! Indie.Arie!

11. Taylor Swift is cute and can sing but please - "Mean" is a teenage girl song. It's a nice little song but country song of the year? This was especially odd after hearing The Civil Wars sing the hell out of their 60 seconds. More of that duo, please.

12. I wonder if anyone learned anything by seeing Adele win based just on having a killer voice? What do you think? SIGH.

13. And finally, the man of the night - the performer who truly blew everyone away - was Sir Paul McCartney who at 69 years old was stronger and cooler than pretty much everyone else put together. He's back in such a big way, Thank God.

If you want an obsession, I'd say Writers' Houses is one to pick

1. The new issue of Bookslut went up this week with my column on bios and historical fiction and historical poetry. All of it is fabulous and I bet you haven't heard of most of these books. You should. Go. LOOK.

2. I also have a standalone review of Osa and Martin by Kelly Enright. As I write in the review, I've been a fan of Osa Johnson's ever since I happened into her autobiography while scanning the shelves of a particularly dusty used bookstore many years ago. Enright fills in many of the blanks and this is a most excellent book about a fascinating couple who happened to film South Pacific cannibals and African safaris in the early 20th century. (If that doesn't get you curious, note that Martin Johnson first traveled around the world with Jack London. How cool is that?!)

3. And see Martyn Pedler's column "Self publish or Perish".

4. Look - a new literary festival and it's in western Washington! It will be interesting to see how things develop. For folks who don't know, this is a location waaaaay out in the Cascade Range. Gorgeous area and very Pacific Northwesterny. (I know that's not a word but you get my point.)

5. Matt Ruff talks about writing The Mirage, a book I'll be including in my April column. (it crosses over just fine to teens.) I don't think there is any author other than Ruff who could have pulled off this title - an alt history book where the twin towers in Baghdad were attacked by American Christian fundamentalists on November 9, 2001. The twist - the amazing twist - is that some people are convinced that things are not as they are supposed to be, that actually America was attacked by Islamic fundamentalists on September 11th and the world they are living in is really a mirage.

So.Good. SOOOO good.

Here's a bit from Matt on the book:



There was the central conceit of the mirage. Apart from being a neat twist that you could build off of [it was a reminder that] your place in history, at the top of the pyramid of power, is not assured. If the world is turned over once, it could turn over again, and you should maybe build your ethics on the idea that you'll be on the bottom some day or you'll be in need of mercy...If you took Americans and you put them in a position where they believe they should be at the top, and instead, had been humiliated and put at the bottom, the rage that would evolve from that is probably not that different than the rage that comes out of the Middle East. They've been on the receiving end for a long time. Certainly guys like [Ayman al-]Zawahiri are oppressed, they're mad. The Mirage was part of the way at getting at some of that mindless violence.

6. Excellent piece at NPR on the discovery of a recording of a lost speech by Malcolm X at Brown University and the grad student who found it. What's interesting here is that the speech is basically absent from all official records at the school, but some luck and additional digging found something amazing. (This is basically every history nerd's dream by the way.)

7. Huzzah - Route 66 is coming back to life!

8. And double huzzah - the Writers' Houses Kickstarter project is funded! Feel free to continue donating however - I'm sure Allison will put your cash to good use (and there are illustrated postcards and many other goodies that will come your way).

"He looked at the world like he wanted to swallow it."

I wrote my review of Elizabeth Hand's Radiant Days yesterday for my April column and was struck again by how intense and full the language is in the this book. I don't mean to suggest it is harsh in any way - just powerful and lush and beautiful. Liz has such a way with the written word; she truly does paint pictures with her narrative. I can't stress enough how important I think her work is for other writers to read; even if you are writing in a completely different genre there is still much to learn from her use of language. Her characters are so vividly created and their emotions so raw - they will appeal to anyone who appreciates true emotional honesty.

Yeah, I'm a fan.

Anyway, here's a bit from Radiant Days, which is about teen artist Merle living in 1978 Washington DC who collides one night across time with Arthur Rimbaud and has her life changed:

It unnerved me. Young as he was, crazy as he was, he acted like he knew something I didn't, and never would. Clea's taunt came back to me - Get a decent haircut and some clothes, go home to Norville.

Arthur would never do that, I thought.

And for the first time I realized, Neither will I.

Do you remember when you felt powerful enough to create something that would change the world? I forgot that for awhile; honestly I don't know that I feel that way now really. I think I should - I think it would be helpful if I did - but it seems like we think those big dreams are only for when we're young. When you hit 40, you just want the chance to change a tiny piece of the world, a couple of dozen hearts and minds. That's what I like the most about Liz Hand's books - she makes me a believer in powerful moments again. "I say you have to become a visionary, make yourself a visionary." Arthur Rimbaud wrote that in 1871 and now, in 2012, Liz Hand gives it to readers all over again. There's no excuse for any of us she asserts, not to try at least, there has never been an excuse not to try.

Arthur Rimbaud would laugh at me and my defeatism right now; Liz Hand, I think, would merely say get back to work. So here I go....

[Post title from "Radiant Days" of course!]