Jan Priddy > Recent Status Updates

The last story here begins: "It's late summer in London and all the pigeons have died." It ends with starlings black against the sky and pink dawn. Cheery.

They're all like this.

"Waves roll black against the night." No, they don't.

Stories of sacrifice and disappointment. Heroic statues come alive and a little boy is convinced the tooth fairy is dead because the city sprayed to stop West Nile and that killed her. The cover is a stunner, but these are stories of the post-apacolypse.

I aim to read a book each week, but that's not happening. Because I injured my left foot almost a month ago, haven't run or walked since the 1st of June, and can barely hobble from home to room, I am spending more time reading and today I am 10 books ahead of schedule.

I would be happier to have a long walk each day.

The obscene accidents are bad enough, that the family never seems to learn anything from them is worse. Ex: The first car crash when they tried to drive home to Idaho from Arizona... and the next time they are in Arizona, they try again. The explosions and fires and beatings, the apologies that mean nothing. The nonstop focus of the author on power and esteem, when you want so desperately to find common sense.

On page 2 of the prologue, I found the first issue, and wished I were her editor. I am sorry to discover the book is already out and it's two late to offer to be her editor.

Her brother "Shawn" is a familiar character. I observed boys like that when I was teaching high school. Boys who manipulated and abused, tortured the girls who loved them, would destroy the next ones in the same way. They were stupid sometimes—the boys who knew they could do that. The girls had been preconditioned by indifferent fathers and careful mothers to take it, to remain humble and soft while they were ruined.

I am reading a not-yet-released novel. I like it so far, I think, but the press needs better editors. Here: "The cement was poured first. Then on the second day, a pedestal was placed in the center of the square." Except the more accurate term would likely be concrete, and either way that pour would have to cure before a pedistal could be placed and no statue could be placed "on the third morning."

Powerful so far.

Ended better than I expected.

Depth of tread should be at least 11". Width of tread is side to side—there are codes for that too, and the requirement for and height of railing, and pretty much everything else. The goal is safety. But if the character had actually worked construction, he'd know all that.

Main stairs, sure, but attic, basement, back stairs? Not so much. The s1919 stairs in our Seattle house didn't follow the rule. It's code now.

Smiley cites "the 17-inch rule" which I learned as the "17 1/2 inch rule" [11" and 6.5") and is called today the "17-18 inch rule" for the combined depth of tread (not the width) + height of riser. The character could not have measured old houses and found this 17" rule to be absolutely consistent in old houses, because it wasn't. Tread depth matters more, and consistency in a flight of stairs matters most of all.

I do remember this one/ but thirty-odd years on I find the pronouncements of this novella... wrong?

"Dynamite" is not mentioned in the back cover copy. I don't know what to say about it here. Does it represent a possible story of an American terrorist bomber? I don't care.

Did I read this when I bought the book at the end of the 1980s? I rarely gave up on books in those days, recall not caring for this one, though I loved Orindary Love & Good Will first published two years later.

Despite driving through a blizzard, "Long Distance" is precise only about interior landscapes. On the other hand: "Patriarchy" is reviled (74). Another sad story and an empty, yearning life. ±that's probably too harsh.

If genders were reversed, this last, "Jeffrey, Believe Me," would be a story about rape. Smiley is rarely kind and these stories are center on 30ish, lonely, child-hungry, and not very interesting white people.

When I first read them, I didn't appreciate that she was ahead of her time (stories dating 1977-1987) with Lesbian and gay characters, but then again, I'd had gay and Lesbian friends since high school.

"Lily" awful people.

The story about Smiley is that in grad school she made a list of books to write (a Shakespearean tragedy and a comedy, a mystery, etc.) and then proceeded to write them all. I know I read this long ago, but it's one of the few that failed to leave an impression.

I don't know what to say about the first story. I know someone who lived it.

I have had to set this aside for the moment. Too close for comfort.

I am tired of books about war and destruction, romances, anything with royalty—maybe especially that. I refuse to read another fantasy with a king or prince, languishing princess or commoner who marries above their station. Give me another sort of adventure, one where wealth and position are beside the point rather than THE point. No sex scenes because they are almost always done badly.