Claire Fullerton's Blog: A Writing Life, page 8

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Book Review: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

I've always been an admirer of the first person narrative. When handled deftly, it magnifies the complex variables that comprise us all. Rebecca is a psychological treatise with a confessional tone spawned from the narrator's perception, and this is the story. That the narrator is young, inexperienced, and overwhelmed to the point of skittishness sets the dark tone of every paragraph in this cleverly paced mystery. Her vantage point is solidly built on assumption, suspicion and crippling self doubt. The plot is a simple one: the young narrator begins as a paid, personal companion to a domineering wealthy woman, who is on holiday in Monte Carlo, when fate places her in the dining room of a luxuriant hotel next to the table of the troubled widower, Max de Winter, who hails from the Cornish Coast. An awkward and unlikely alliance develops between the narrator and the worldly Max de Winter, which leads to a hasty marriage, in which the reader learns along with the narrator of de Winters' disturbing past. Set in the house and rambling coastal grounds of de Winters' stately Manderley, the narrator enters a dynamic firmly in play, whose tone was cast and exists still from the hand of Rebecca: the first Mrs. de Winter. Rebecca's shadow looms imperiously, and brings to the fore the narrator's insecurities. Having no background story on her predecessor, the inchoate narrator is tossed by the winds of assumption, half-truths and incomplete perceptions made all the more dark by the presence of Rebecca's loyal personal maid, Mrs. Danvers, whose presence lends a disquieting air, due to her supercilious knack for comparison. Rebecca is an off-kilter mystery that unfolds along the road of the search for truth regarding what, exactly, happened to Rebecca. That the narrator stays in suspense until the sinister end lures the reader through a story elegantly told in language so poetic, it is its own experience.

A Lowcountry Heart by Pat Conroy

In my mind, there’s Pat Conroy and then there’s everybody else. What makes him an island unto himself is his intimate, confessional writing. I’ve been wrestling with trying to articulate exactly why his words speak to so many and have arrived at the conclusion that at the foundation of his God given gift to effortlessly arrange words is the bedrock of clear thinking. Too many people buckle under the weight of their own unwieldy emotional level, and as it is only human nature to duck and cover from pain and confusion, their unexamined emotional life takes on a crippling weight all its own and leads to a list of crimes against the human heart. The magic of Conroy is in his fearlessness to call anything by name and his cache of language to do so exactly. In so doing for himself, he does so for humanity. His is a dauntless, confident voice so surefooted, his readers know and trust him. Each of his novels sends the reader through the thicket of life itself then leaves them parked in front of a mirror to reflect. In A Lowcountry Heart, Conroy tells his legions of fans not only how he does this, but why. I’ve heard Conroy called a generous writer by many, and this book tells me how he earned the reputation. Behold, the man behind the curtain, who has a seat across from you and looks you in the eye as he explains what goes on in his passionate soul. Pick a subject, any subject, and Conroy pontificates in this treasure of a book. Thank you, Nan Talese and Doubleday. This, like all of Pat Conroy’s books, is a masterpiece from the man who keeps on giving.

A Place in the World

I used to go home every Christmas to the house I grew up in, and Finley used to be there—eventually, anyway. He’d come swaggering in, all blue-eyed, and gray, three-quarter coat swinging. In from Virginia. The educated man; all beaming, charismatic six- foot- two of him, setting the stage in that rambling Southern house by virtue of his presence. It was that way every year because Finley was the kind of guy who could enter a room and take over completely. My brother was that magnetic.
Every December, my mother went all out. She’d have the yardman wrestle yards of pine garland into the entrance hall and drape it languidly along the curving banister in elegant loops tied with taffeta bows of red floral ribbon bordered in gold wire. She draped garland over the downstairs mantle pieces, sylvan and pungent as a forest bed, scenting the rooms in an aroma so redolent it tickled the back of my throat. Year after year, she had the fifteen piece crèche hauled down from the attic and would arrange it on the fold-out desk in the parlor. I never knew how she procured it, but ritualistically a ten foot tree from the outskirts of Memphis would appear in the parlor, skirted in velvet and appointed with lights before she invited anyone to assist. She made a sacrament of Christmas every year, and would slide the big cardboard box marked Christmas from the closet under the entrance hall stairs. She’d reach into the box reverently to produce the ornaments Finley and I made in kindergarten and would coo a wistful, diaphanous succession of “I remember when’s” and “y’all were so cutes.” I’d stand in the entrance hall and watch her delicate gestures, realizing there was a side of my mother given to maternal nostalgia.
I was sitting on the sofa in the card room when Finley came swinging in wearing his gray coat from Brooks Brothers, all long haired and collegiate-cool. He covered the card room in six strides and gave me a hug that lifted me off the floor, before he sat beside me and squeezed that funny area above my knee.
“Quit it,” I squealed, but I didn’t mean it. He could have slapped me upside the head in that moment, and I wouldn’t have cared.
Even the Colonel seemed elated to have Finley home. He gave him a good-ol’-boy back pat and let ring a jolly, “What can I get you to drink?” Surprisingly, in four short months, my brother had risen in our hostile step-father’s estimation. He’d left just as familiarity was starting to breed contempt, but here he was now, an honored guest.
Finley winked at me then walked to the marble-topped table, where an array of crystal decanters held pride of place on a silver serving tray the size of the great outdoors. Something about the way Finley stood made me look at him in a new light. He was tall and fluidly built; the dusky red/blond of his hair waved gently, in a manner mine never could manage. There was something hypnotic about the blue beam of his eyes as they focused from the long angled planes of his face. He stood soldier straight and balanced, exuding an enviable self-assurance in his burgeoning manhood. There was something captivating about Finley, something compelling and electrifying, although few people would call him handsome. But Finley was unique; the kind of guy people turned their heads to watch because something about him was so attractive.
Finley stood shoulder to shoulder with the Colonel, a collegiate Southern gentleman now, making his way in the world. Mom beamed as she watched him, the look on her face reminiscent of the words I’d heard her say a million times before. She’d wave her graceful hand and lilt in her plantation accent, “Well, I just don’t know where Finley came from,” as if she’d woken up one day to the great surprise of Finley at the breakfast table, in the cavernous house she’d grown up in and subsequently inherited in Memphis’ Kensington Park.
“Millie,” Finley turned to me, “what can I get you to drink?”
It was the first time my brother deferred to me as a lady, in that way Southern men do before they help themselves to a drink. In that moment, I was grown up. In that moment, Finley beamed his blue eyes upon me and they set my life in orbit and gave me a place in the world.

Notes on The Pat Conroy Literary Festival

Because one has to follow what has resonance in life, I wound up on a plane, crossing the country from Los Angeles to Beaufort, South Carolina. I did this because the author Pat Conroy has always been my idea of the personification of what it means to be a writer. In life, he was the embodiment of language in its highest form. Pat Conroy took this business of being human, with all its frailties, heartbreaks, and nuances, and wrestled it into art. He was strong enough, brave enough, trusting enough to share his stories, and in so doing, he gave us all the gift of options by using writing as saving grace along life’s riddled path. That he wrote in the first person spoke to me, for I knew exactly to whom I was listening. I understood Pat Conroy, cared about him, identified with his human predicament, and applauded his uncanny ability to lift himself out of his own confusion by putting his tumultuous life into words.
And so I flew to South Carolina this past weekend to attend the inaugural Pat Conroy Literary Festival, in Conroy’s beautiful, lowcountry hometown. Just last year, I’d done the same to attend the celebration around his 70th birthday, which turned out to be the smartest move I made in 2015. Meeting Pat Conroy in person and watching him navigate the throngs of peers and readers humanized the diaphanous mystery of those lofty souls set upon this earth to interpret it for the rest of us. He walked among us, humble and smiling, posing for photographs and shaking hands like an overwhelmed child, grateful and surprised that so many had turned out for his party. His sincere, wide-eyed comportment shook me to my core and stayed with me long thereafter. I was well aware at the time that I was witnessing exactly what it means to be a celebrated writer and not have it go to your head.
I will digress here to say that In March of 2016, in a crisis that blindsided the literary world, Pat Conroy died of pancreatic cancer. It was such a profound loss, with baffled legions asking how this could possibly be that the outpouring of love continues to this day. My belief is it will go on forever, for Pat was so beloved that people will always be uneasy with the metal glare of letting him go.
 And so the town of Beaufort rebounded after Pat Conroy’s death. The fact that Hurricane Matthew blew through the region the week before deterred them not one iota. They assembled en masse to rise up and fuel the fire that Pat Conroy set. The inaugural Pat Conroy Literary Festival had the same tone and tenor of Pat Conroy’s 70th birthday; it carried on for him, because of him, in honor of his name. I had a feeling this would be the case, when the festival was announced, and did not hesitate to make arrangements to attend. To not have done so after being there last year seemed unthinkable; it would have flown in the face of all things Pat, and I wanted to uphold my end.
I’m going to go on and say it: It’s liberating to be a writer without personal agenda. Six years of promoting my books, myself, and everything all about me is exhausting, and frankly goes against my nature. This is why I took a big exhale when I got to The Pat Conroy Literary Festival in Beaufort. For four days, I was in witness of writers and readers assembled for all the right reasons: love of story. We all knew that Pat Conroy was the pivotal point, yet his absence did not overshadow the celebratory spirit of the weekend. The reason why is because Pat Conroy had shown us, the year before, how to dive right in and revel in the company of those who contribute to our chosen field. There seemed no hierarchy of value in those gathered for the weekend, just the impression that we are all on the same path; some ahead, others a few paces behind. For me, it was like visiting a foreign country and discovering that everybody spoke my first language. I sat in the audience of one panel discussion after another and was invigorated and informed by what the participating authors had to share. The thing about being a writer is there is no there to get to; there is only the process of personal growth, and what is invaluable to the momentum is allowing yourself to remain a student. This is what Pat Conroy did last year, and I say this because I could feel it. I’m pretty sure he was in the audience of every event of the Pat Conroy at 70 Festival, with his pen and paper in hand, for every time I turned around, I saw him, eyes focused on the stage with glee and rapt attention. I cannot adequately articulate what watching this world-renowned author taught me, except to say that it taught me everything. It has much to do with decency and camaraderie, and the willingness to celebrate those who create through the written word.
The Pat Conroy Literary Festival was like being in a bee-hive of literary heroes.  It was a four day celebration orchestrated “for the love of words and story,” which is a phrase Pat Conroy used, whenever he signed his books.  There was something so heartwarming and ceremonious about the entire weekend. It was a literary festival put on by those who loved Pat Conroy for those who loved Pat Conroy, and the overall feeling was that the celebration will never end.   

Book Review: Serena by Ron Rash

It is the slightly off-kilter, dark tone of this book that mesmerizes. Set in the year 1929, in the North Carolina mountains, George Pemberton arrives on a train from Boston with his cultured new wife, Serena. It is a rough-hewn, brass tacks timber camp dedicated to clearing the region of its trees for financial gain that Serena enters and assumes control. The daughter of a timber man from Colorado, Serena knows the business better than most men, and uses her wits and whiles to manipulate affairs to her liking as she plots to expand the business. With a mysterious background to her credit, both George and the reader come to know Serena through her ruthless, self-serving dealings; nothing is beneath her pursuit of expansion: no morals, ethics, nor even the law. In short order, George Pemberton becomes a man caught in a web, yet is so enamored of his wife, he is willing to go along as events spin out of his control and lead to the ultimate betrayal. This is the fifth book I have read by the author, Ron Rash, and I find his voice unlike any other. Ron Rash is a writer gifted with the poetics of economy. His settings exist in society's underworld, which he compliments through the use of language so pitch perfect in regional colloquialism it gives you the characters background and explains their individual mind-set. Ron Rash's Serena is a villain for the ages; she is canny, single-minded, attractive, and dangerous. This bone-chilling story is both gripping and blind-siding. It is another fine example of Ron Rash's deft handling of the darker notes of self-preservation at any cost.

A Southern Voice

A Southern Voice
The first voice to caress my infant ears rolled with such lyrical beauty that I’m offended by other accents to this day. It soothed in its quicksilver fluidity, lacked hard edges, and whispered in promises so compelling it could turn the most resistant of souls into a willing adherent. I know now that sound travels queerly and can double back upon itself in time. I often hear the voice of my Southern mother when I least expect it; it comes to me more as reminder than recollection, and carries a way of being in the world along a template so firmly etched that its resonance is guiding and indelible.

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Claire Fullerton's Dancing to an Irish Reel is a 2016 Kindle Book Awards Finalist and A 2016 Readers' Favorite

The Risen by Ron Rash

This is, yet again, another gripping Ron Rash novel. What stays with me most, upon reflection, is that the premise of The Risen is tight and simple. Two brothers, in a small North Carolina town, are swimming in a creek in the summer of 1969 and meet a seventeen year old outsider who impacts their lives. But Ron Rash gives us a thorough psychological treatise, through the character of younger brother Eugene, on the desperation behind falling in love for the first time and the complexities of younger brother syndrome during one's coming of age. Place is a character in this story, described in Rash's keen vernacular, and it is the unsolved past that pulls us through this story. The reader lives in two time frames as the story unfolds, which gives us the experience of cause and effect. On the one hand, The Risen floats on the wings of the fruits of summer, on the other its tension builds through the guilt of a broken man. The Risen is a page-turning mystery with a twist, written in such a way that you can feel the guilt that haunts the two main characters' involvement. It speaks of the repercussions of one false move that shadows lifetimes, and though the mystery may have been solved at the end, it suggests that nobody gets away with anything for long.

Temple Secrets by Susan Gabriel Review

I'm going to try to come near stringing the adequate words together that describe how much I loved this book. I'll cut to the chase and say it was so good, I didn't want it to end. Temple Secrets is the kind of well crafted book that, once closed, causes you to wonder what to do next with your life. Author Susan Gabriel created a story chock-full of Southern characters and never once condescended to anything campy, rather, she infused every character with soul as they walked the wire of a story so unique as to be plausible, of character nuance so defined, you understood the underlying motivation behind every thought and deed in this electrifyingly unusual gem of common history experienced individually by players so intertwined, their lives are domino effects wrought from the hands of each other. And oh, the tone of this book: it is bluntly in your face without being offensive. Susan Gabriel writes in a direct, brass tacks voice that is howlingly funny, for all its taboo subjects, and I relished every line. The premise of Temple Secrets is this: In blue-blooded, aristocratic Savannah, where the mansions are gothic and imposing as they retain the character of days gone by, supercilious eccentric, Iris Temple, is on her last leg. For decades, she has ruled the roost of everything and everyone around her. She is one of Savannah's inflexible old guard and proud of it to the point that she wields her power position in society like a sword. Hers is a personality so full of controlling disdain that she is feared not only by her family and staff, but by the denizens of Savannah, whose tether she keeps tight by her family's book of secrets, which details intimate, damaging facts best not publically revealed. Iris is estranged from her full-grown daughter, looks down on her mulatto half-sister, who lives with her, and is catered to beyond reason by a handful of staff, who prefer not to stir the waters of Iris' own self-image. It is a dynamic changer, when Iris is incapacitated by a stroke, and suffice it to say the ghosts of her past come out to haunt, literally and figuratively, which wouldn't happen in most places, but it can and does in Savannah. In chapters detailing the individual character's connection to Iris, the story morphs into an incestuous web you didn't see coming. And at the heart of this story is the Temple Book of Secrets; someone has taken it upon themselves to publish part of its content, but the mystery is nobody knows who or why. It's hard to write more at this point, without needing a spoiler alert, and I don't want to deprive the reader of the joy to be found in this bounding story, so I will summarize by saying this novel is so engaging, so thrilling and unique that I stand beside many clamoring for a sequel!

Book Review: The World Made Straight by Ron Rash

There's a good reason the Atlanta Journal Constitution called Ron Rash "one of the major writers of our time." To me, he is this and more. Ron Rash writes in a gritty, mountain vernacular that can't be faked; one has to come from it and know it as their own voice of consciousness in order to wield it as plausibly as he. Rash's language, therefore, is its own reasoning; it speaks of a clear-cut, hard-edged, uncompromising way of living in the world devoid of the illusion of optimism. One wonders, as they read Rash, if it is the jaded wrappings of cynicism or the unvarnished truth behind his tightly crafted novels. This is a writer who delivers the dark notes of beaten humanity in such a way that there is hope. In The World Made Straight, Travis Shelton comes from nothing, on the cusp of manhood in an unforgiving North Carolina mountain community, where drug-dealing is a viable livelihood, in this hardscrabble region with few opportunities outside of one's own wits. It is the glimmer of something more that drives him to prove himself to his rough-hewed, hard-nosed father. Travis seeks to better himself after one fight too many; he leaves the tobacco fields on his family's land and presents himself at the trailer of a local named Leonard, who is both drug-dealer and mentor, in that he is the only one in Travis' sphere who, at one time, amounted to anything, though fate made it short-lived. Under Leonard's influence, Travis pursues his high school GED, while shouldering the fall-out of the one false move he made, when he riled the shackles of local heavy-weight, Carlton Toomey, when he trespassed on his land. These are mountain characters who play by their own lawless rules, in a landscape where it's every man for himself. In a climate still stinging from the horrors of the Civil War, the characters are born beneath the shadow of the ties that atavistically bind them, albeit through a sense of random tribal placement that haunts this story in an unfolding mystery, the impact of which the characters are not completely aware, until the looming puzzle work fits. It is a small world, in The World Made Straight, but it is universal in implication. Self-worth, justice, revenge, and hope against all odds flavors this story, which ends in notes of satisfaction and just deserves.