the inside scoop on Tour de Blog—via Bill Wolfe and Caroline Leavitt and over to Kelly Simmons

Well, here we go. Mr. Bill Wolfe, that cool dude who reads only women's fiction and lives to tell the tale on Read Her Like an Open Book, tagged me (oh, the secrets, the secrets) on the My Writing Process Tour Blog. Bill, who keeps us guest bloggers honest, reviews incredibly interesting books, teaches for a living, and opines, but always kindly, is a tough act to follow. Equally tough is his tagger, Caroline Leavitt, whose inspirational story and stories (and blog) have been integral to the lay of my land for years.

(I've previously written about Bill here and Caroline here and many elsewheres.)

And now, here I stand, with questions to answer, pondering my capability.

I begin:

1. What are you working on? 
I am currently doing a final round of edits to a young adult novel that will launch from Chronicle Books in 2016. When that is done later this weekend, I'll return to two new projects—an adult novel and a book of nonfiction. Both are in the early 4,000-word stage, so inchoate, strange, and internal that I suspect I won't be able to describe them even after (if) they are done. They are projects designed to keep my mind whole, more than anything else, or as whole as this cracked vessel will ever get. In between, when feigning greater sanity, I'm writing white papers and news stories for clients and reviews and essays for the Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Oh, and a lot of student recommendation letters.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?
I always think this is a question best left to the critics—though I hate to presume that any critic anywhere will have time for such a Beth Kephart conundrum. I guess the answer, for me, has something to do with that old cliche of staying true to myself (hey, if Tim Gunn can say it on national TV, I can say it in Beth land). I'm not interested in bending my work to meet the expectations of our time (whatever they are) or to fall in line with trends. I write what is urgent, what intrigues me. I write to find out what might happen next, a small and increasingly daring enterprise.

3. Why do you write what you do?
Because I can't help it. Because I get obsessed with some historical event (the Berlin wall, the Spanish Civil War, Florence after the flood), some force of nature, some sound in my head, something someone said, some trouble. Because the only excuse I have to think about it longer is to begin to write a book. Otherwise, in my dim and insufficiently capacious brain, all is fleeting. And because I think that what we write has to matter in a broader way. We live in perilous times. I want to understand them. I want my stories and my work to lead others down inquiring paths. I also want my readers to think about language in new ways, and so I write what I hear in my twisted head.

4. How does your writing process work?
It rarely does work. Most of the time I'm doing my day job. But when I find patches of time I hunch my shoulders, draw out a pen (literally), sit on the couch where the depressed cushion suggests I should each less chocolate, and get going. When I'm writing I am living inside a fortress of books and newspapers (on some days the research is my favorite part). When I'm writing there's a happy buzz inside my head, except when the writing isn't working, which is an astonishingly large chunk of the time. Boy, I can write some really bad stuff. Boy, I can go off on tangents. But, hey. Nobody sees that, at least in the beginning. Nobody but me and my chocolate bars.

For the next stop on the blog tour, I nominate Kelly Simmons,who is not just a terrific, funny, compassionate, hardworking writer, but a starred writer, too, and a dear friend. (Kelly also knows where the best V-necked turquoise T-shirts live in the local shop, and she will join you in the consumption of six-ounce shrimp at the drop of a dime; she also forgives (I think) your poorly typed text messages; finally, I wish to add that, when you are walking together down Sugartown Road, the boys in the cars all stop for her, the Kelly Phenom.) Kelly's third novel (for adults, people!), One More Day, was PW announced days ago. It will be published by Sourcebooks next fall. I've read a few pages here and there. Ladies and gents, get ready for Wow.

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Celebrating the Launch of Shebooks

Looking for something bright in this new year? A new literary idea that really works?

I have one word for you: Shebooks.

Readers of this blog might remember my post about a certain Shebooks writing contest a few months back.

Today I'm talking about the suite of Shebooks singles already available for downloading. These exquisite "mini" books of some 7,500 words each fit in your hands, can be read in a sitting, and can be downloaded for a mere $2.99 each. That's one thing. The other thing? They're written by writers you already know and love. Marion Winik. Laura Fraser. Hope Edelman. Micah Perkins. Ann Pearlman. Jessica Anya Blau. Faith Adiele. Suzanne Antonetta Paola. Zoe Rosenfeld. And many more to come.

I find the entire concept—the brainchild of Peggy Northrop and Laura Fraser—exhilarating. I've found the Shebooks themselves to be knock out reads—quieting, intriguing, considered, intimate, and intimately addressed to the reader (Want to eat the food of Italy without actually getting on a plane? Read Laura. Want a companion as you consider the lost and found of memory? Marion is your guide. Want to be carried backward in time, to a black and white engagement? Read Ann. Etc.). I feel incredibly lucky to be included in this community, with my own mini-memoir—Nests. Flight. Sky.—due out soon. And I feel especially happy to invite my women writing friends to consider submitting their own work to Shebooks.

For more on Shebooks, read Caroline Leavitt's interview with Laura Fraser, Editorial Director and Cofounder. Look, too, for upcoming essays and interviews on Jennifer Haupt's wonderful Psychology Today blog, One True Thing. And download a book, or two on this snowy day. It'll be the best bit of change you'll ever spend.

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Summer Reading (and last day for the HANDLING contest)

With work on the first draft of my last novel now done, I can, as I mentioned a few days ago, turn to the piles upon piles of books that have been waiting for me. (As well as all the titles I've downloaded on my iPad.)

Recently I have shared my thoughts on Caroline Leavitt's Is This Tomorrow, Katie Haegele's White Elephants, Chloe Aridjis's Asunder, Jessica Keener's Night Swim, Marie Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Susan Tekulve's In the Garden of Stone, and Elizabeth Graver's End of the Point.    

Throughout the next few months, you'll be hearing from me on books like the following:

Someone, Alice McDermott
The World is a Carpet, Anna Badkhen
It's Not Love, It's Just Paris, Patricia Engel
Still Writing, Dani Shapiro
Country Girl, Edna O'Brien
Reality Boy, A.S. King
The News from Spain, Joan Wickersham
Norwegian by Night, Derek Miller
Grace Before Dying, Lori Waselchuk
River of Dust, Virginia Pye
Perfect Red, Jennie Nash
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo
Yesterday's Weather, Anne Enright
Some Nerve, Patty Chang Anker
Margot, Jillian Cantor


I'll also be sharing thoughts on a number of classic memoirs.

Speaking of which: Today is your last day to enter to win my last copy of Handling the Truth. The details are here.

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Is This Tomorrow/Caroline Leavitt: Reflections

We in the Land of Facebook have a strong affection for Caroline Leavitt, that New York Times bestselling author, that Sundance worthy scriptwriter, that well-regarded critic, that teacher, that bloggess. Her generosity sweeps in all directions. When she interviews writers for her meaty CarolineLeavittville, you can tell that she's read the book, engaged with the book, wanted the book to succeed. When she's up in the late night or the early AM working or angsting or thinking about chocolate, she messages out, lassos us in, makes us part of her story.

You cannot possibly be a lonesome writer if your world has ever swept up against the world of Caroline Leavitt. She builds community. She knits us together.

To her books—novels that care as much about the characters as they care about the plot—Caroline transports her giant soul. I was a big fan of Pictures of You (read my thoughts here on Caroline's talent for creating intimacy with the third person voice) and so was the rest of the world.

Is This Tomorrow, Caroline's newest, instantly compelling tale, is trademark Caroline all over again—characters that walk straight out of real life and edge-of-your-seat plot. This time the story begins in the 1950s. It features a divorced Jewish mom, her son, Lewis, and his two across-the-street best friends. One of those friends will go mysteriously missing early on. The accommodations the characters make to keep moving forward in the wake of the tragedy will never be enough. The truth, when it is found out, will eventually snap the characters straight out of time and back toward the dark.

Ava, the divorcee with the fine legs and the almost (almost) unwitting seductive style, will, in time, come to take pleasure from baking—and selling—pies. Her hands are the right temperature (chilly) for the crust. Her enthusiasm for diverting from known recipes into uncharted flavors serves her well. The happiness she derives from doing that which she chooses to do—and begins to do definingly well—is the happiness, I suspect, that Caroline hopes for us all.

A few words from one of my favorite scenes:

He took a bite and then looked up at her, as if he were taking her measure. She saw the surprise in his face, the pleasure. "Cloves," she whispered into his ear. "Nutmeg." He took another bite and another and soon finished off the whole piece. "Is there more?" he said and she laughed.

And she laughed. As might we all.

On another note: just one more day in the Handling the Truth giveaway.... Memoir makers, this is for you.

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In Leavittville: A Small Damages Conversation (and my love for Philomel)

I wanted to find a pair of cowgirl boots for my friend Caroline Leavitt, to thank her for making room for me on her roost today, but the best I could do was this sign, photographed in Nashville four years ago, which sat (you'll have to believe me) right near a cowboy/cowgirl boot store.  Why I didn't think to photograph the boots themselves is beyond me.  What is not beyond me, at this moment, is gratitude.  For Caroline's friendship.  For her own talent.  For conversations we have had in public and in private as we both journey through this writing life.  I don't even know how Caroline got an early copy of Small Damages, but she had one.  She's in the midst of writing a brand new book, and she made time to read it.  Then she asked me excellent questions, the kind of questions one who knows another well can ask.  I answered them all here.

Among the things we discussed is how much I love Philomel, and how I made my way to this great place to begin with.  I extract a small fraction of our conversation below, but hope you will visit Leavittville for more.

Philomel is exquisite.  At Philomel I have a home.  There I have never felt like a fringe writer, a secondary writer, a marginal, will-she-please-fit-a-category, we’ll-get-to-you-when-we-get-to-you writer.  Michael Green, Philomel’s president, is a most generous person, and correspondent.  Tamra—beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful, embracing—approached the editing of this book, the design of its cover, and the preparation of it for the world with the greatest care, and in the process we became great friends.  Jessica Shoffel, a wildly wonderful and innovative publicist, wrote me a note I’ll never forget after she read the book and her devotion to getting the word out has been unflagging, sensational.  The sales team got in touch a long time ago and has stayed in touch.  And on and on.  

But no, I never knew I would shine.  I don’t think of myself as a diamond or a star.  I never think in those terms.  I just keep writing my heart out.  And when you are collaborating with a house like Philomel, when you are given room, when your questions are answered, when you are given a chance, there are possibilities.

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You Are My Only. Today is the Day.

I didn't actually sleep last night, and if this blog post is riddled with errors, forgive me.  I'm a little blind, a little dizzy, and a whole lot grateful.

You Are My Only makes its way into the world today.  It has, in so many of you, glorious handmaidens.  Super glorious. Thank you—again—does not suffice.  You have given this book life.

Today I want to thank the wise and talented Melissa of The Betty and Boo Chronicles for this breathtaking review, and for somehow locating and sharing one of my favorite passages in the book.  It was after I wrote this scene, Melissa, that I knew I had to keep writing this story.

I want to thank Caroline Leavitt, novelist and novelist advocate supreme, for giving me room to tell the story behind the book trailer (the thoughts that went into this underfunded gal's head) on her always outerdirected, fascinating blog, CarolineLeavittville. 

I want to thank Katie Halata for sending me the YALSA review of 15-year-old Riley Brannian, who is calling for a sequel.

I want to thank all of you who sent this book into an early second printing and contributed to the message I received when I went on the YAMO Amazon site this morning to make sure the book is actually available (though goodness knows I am extremely hopeful that this is but a very temporary (perhaps it will be rectified by dawn?) state of affairs).

Temporarily out of stock. 

And I want to thank all of you, again, for keeping the momentum building by blogging (thank you today, Anna Lefler!), Facebooking, Tweeting, talking, and both supporting and participating in the You Are My Only Treasure Hunt (and, in some cases, taking that Hunt to exponential places).  I had, as you know, written five guest posts about the making of this book.  Mundie Moms, My Friend Amy,  The Story Siren, Chick Loves Lit, and Bookalic.ious gave me room in their immaculate nests to share those posts, and many of you went off searching for them.  Those posts were made possible, to begin with, thanks to the outreach of the young women behind There's a Book and My Friend Amy, who provided enormous support of this book (and others!) from the very start. 

The posts themselves are here:

1.  The (furious) metamorphosis of Sophie
2.  Opening the Doors to Clois and Helen by Beth Kephart 
3.  When Emmy called I listened 
4.  I was obsessed with an asylum 
5.  What name should we give this book?


I had said that there would be two winners of this treasure hunt.  But today (is it the hour?  is it my half-blindness? is it that fingers are sticky when I reach into the hat?) I find that we have three.  Those winners (of a signed copy of YAMO and of my critique of 2,000 words in progress) are listed below.  Please send me an email about how I can reach you. 

Serena Agusto-Cox of Savvy Verse & Wit, an extraordinary Treasure Hunter if ever there was one.  (I think she found some of the posts before they were even up.)

Bonnie Jacobs of Bonnie's Books, who sent me her links at a very early hour.

Wendy of Caribou's Mom, who read the book itself early and whose blog I have followed ever since we both fell in love with The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Oh.  Wait.  I forgot.  There's a fourth winner.  She's Vivian Lee Mahoney, who I met early on in this blogosphere, and who has been a dear and glorious friend. 

Oh.  And Florinda of 3rsblog— I know you have a signed copy of this book already.  But if you have something in progress that you would like me to critique....... (she winks)

Ladies:  Game on.

Thank you all—a million times over.

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Meet the Dear Reader Giveaway Winners

I knew Dear Reader was a happening place months ago, when I was invited to stand in as a guest columnist for Suzanne Beecher.  Dear Reader is where a book-reading community gets built, where book clubs find their inspiration, and where conversations gather speed and force.  For my own guest column, I wrote about the young people I've met in my time as a young adult novelist—the passions they stir and the things they teach, the many ways that I am hopeful for and with them.

It was a special opportunity, and so I did something I've never done before—offered all six of my young adult books (the seventh,the Seville-based Small Damages, won't be out until next summer) as a summer giveaway.  And oh, what a response we have had.  I've heard from school principals and librarians, grandmothers and moms, fathers and grandfathers, uncles and aunts.  I've heard from young writers and young readers, students on the verge of college and students on the verge of applying to master's degree programs.  I've received notes from all across the country and all around the world.  Many readers have asked for YA books featuring a male teen; I'm 6,000 words into writing one of those.  Many described their particular passions, their favorite books.

I had originally thought that I would give all six books to a single winner, sweepstakes style, but as I read these notes through and considered the huge volume of mail, it occurred to me that there were some very right and particular titles for some very particular readers.  Here, then, are the winners, with the lines or thoughts that triggered my own "I have just the book for them" responses.  Please know, all of you, that I read and considered and valued and had a very hard time choosing winners.  I hope you'll look for books that sound interesting to you and let me know what you think.

Undercover, my first young adult novel, about a young, Cyrano-like poet and her discovery of her own beauty, to 14-year-old Kyla Rich, who wrote, "My 12-year-old sister and I love to read. .... you can never read too much, especially with how much you can learn from reading: Learn about the world, about scholarly things that you'd learn in school, or, sometimes, about yourself. I never really knew why I read so much or why I liked it but, as I read your Dear Reader, I realized why. I read to understand, to know beyond myself. Exactly what you said in your Dear Reader. I guess that might be another reason I write. My sister and I are writers, unpublished of course, and we write to craft the kind of books we like to read, to give someone joy, to help someone, maybe even start a craze. We write for even that ONE person who likes our books, even if it is just one. At least someone cares enough to read." 

House of Dance, about Rosie's quest to find a final gift for her grandfather (and her discovery of a wonderful cast of ballroom dancers), to Patricia Corcoran, who wrote, "I'm 63 years old and have read for as long as I can remember. Except for when I was growing up, I didn't read Young Adult books. I don't know why, but I didn't. About 3 years ago, I started reading them and thoroughly enjoy the ones I've read so far. I have 2 grandchildren, Gregory who is 9 and Emily who is 8. Both of them like to read and, of course, I encourage them to do so. I've set a goal for myself to learn more about the young adult books, their authors, the book awards, etc so I can be more knowledgeable in this genre of books. I'm so pleased you have the relationship with these young people that you do.What an enrichment they are to your life and how fortunate you are to realize this. Thank you again for sharing this most enjoyable column. The way you described these young people will help me understand and enjoy the young adult books I will be reading in the future."

Nothing but Ghosts, a mystery that stars a bright young woman named Katie, who has recently lost her mother and is trying to understand how one survives loss (a journey that takes her into the garden of a recluse and into the care of a fine and fashionable librarian), to Lisa Moss, a librarian who wrote, "Our department, technically, covers up to 8th grade. But so many of our kids don't ever leave! Oh, sure, they move on in school and read bigger, not better, books from the adult department - but so many keep coming back to us. They volunteer in our Summer Reading Program. They visit during Spring Break.  They tell us stories from their first jobs. And the first thing they all do is go over to the new YA display to see what's there! Once a connection is made, it is there forever."

The Heart Is Not a Size, about Georgia and Riley, whose bestfriendship is tested when they travel to Juarez, Mexico, to build a community bathroom for a squatter's village, to Janet Valentine of Orlando, who is contemplating joining a teenage mission trip and wrote, "You portrayed teen-agers in such a positive light, my husband will be so happy that I read your column and it makes me lean more towards accepting this ministry.  Maybe I will learn a lot more from them than the other way around."

Dangerous Neighbors, about twin sisters, set against the backdrop of Centennial Philadelphia, to Jean Brady, who wrote, "It is so uplifting to see life from someone else's viewpoint, to walk beside someone solving a mystery, though often fiction; to learn more about decorating, recipes, and the like."

You Are My Only, the alternating stories of a young mother who loses her Baby to mysterious means and a teenaged girl breaking free from a reclusive home, to Pat Harmer, who wrote, "I just read your column that you wrote to fill in for Suzanne Beecher. I was so moved by how you expressed the young people. And I am going to recommend your books to my granddaughter, who will be thirteen this fall. She has yet to find an author that she really enjoys, and therefore does not read as much as I would like her to. And perhaps your books will be the ones that drawn her into the wonderful world of reading. Thank you so much for the inspiration."

My thanks to Caroline Leavitt, the wonderful novelist and friend and Facebooker, who suggested Dear Reader to me in the first place.

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What makes a woman brave? How does a woman shake the world?

Between meetings, I sat at a client's office with the March 14 issue of Newsweek on my lap, studying its remarkable center spread:  "150 Women Who Shake the World."  "They are heads of state and heads of household," the story begins.  "Angry protesters in the city square and sly iconoclasts in remote villages.  With a fiery new energy, women are building schools.  Starting businesses.  Fighting corruption...."

The pages that follow tell stories—feature heroines—we women can be proud of.  Chouchou Namegabe is here, honored for her radio documentation of an epidemic of rapes in Congo.  Sharon Cooper, for her studies of the brain development of trafficked girls.  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, as Africa's first female head of state.  Salma Hayek, for her worldwide travels on behalf of maternal health.  Valerie Boyer, for her fight against eating disorders. Amy Gutmann, from my own University of Pennsylvania.  Shakira for her Barefoot Foundation, started when she was just 18 (it says here) to open schools in Colombia, Haiti, and South Africa.  Mia Farrow for not letting us forget Darfur.  Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapping survivor who has become an advocate for victims.  Rebecca Lolosoli of Kenya, who "persuaded women in her village to start a business selling their intricate traditional beadwork to tourists.  Then she encouraged them to form a separate village as both a tourist attraction and a refuge for victims of domestic violence and girls fleeing female genital mutilation or forced marriage."

Get this issue, if you can.  Look at what women can do—at what happens when they stand up on behalf of others and seek a greater, calming good.  And then, if you have a moment, check out page 79.  That's where my friend Caroline Leavitt's book, Pictures of You, is featured as a Jodi Picoult Pick.  

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Take One Candle Light a Room by Susan Straight/Reflections

I first met Susan Straight back in 2001, at the National Book Awards festivities. She was there because her novel, Highwire Moon, had been nominated for fiction the same year Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections was put into the mix.  I was there chairing the Young People Literature's jury.  We'd been writing to each other and talking on the phone, but Susan's southern California and I'm Philadelphia, and it took a touch of fate to bring us face to face, blue eye to green, her daughter saying hello to my son, both of us dangling fancy earrings.

Two weeks ago, Susan sent a copy of her newest book my way.  It's called Take One Candle Light a Room, and in the cracked places of these past few nights, I've been reading.  The book is complex, and alive.  It sounds just like Susan (patois and poetry), and if you want to see Los Angeles through the eyes of a "walkin fool," if you want to try to imagine how the legacy of slavery passes down through the prickled blood, if you want to root for a boy who can write poems and dream big but nonetheless finds himself a gun-toting refugee from the law, let Take One Candle take you there.

Susan's heroine is a southern California, light-skinned travel writer named Fantine Antoine.  She's not married, she's not settled, she goes from place to place to see.  But there's somebody she does love hard, somebody who has power over her, and that's this poem-writing 22-year-old boy named Victor, the son of her murdered best friend.  When Victor gets in trouble with the law, Fantine Antoine runs after him, toward Louisiana, which takes her, in so many ways, running the long way home. This is a violent story, but there's also love in it—love for places, love for language, love for this boy, who has a talent with words.  Here, for example, is what Victor can do on a page:

The Villas—#24—The Balcony
What you don't understand
Is
The snarling jeweled nightbird can be
Beautiful
Even when it wakes you up at two
flying in circles
A silver rope a silver beam tied down? tethered anchored
No escape for the pilot
Either

Caroline Leavitt, whose CarolineLeavitville blog is essential reading for writers, interviewed Susan recently.  I loved reading what both had to say.

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Boot Talk

I was thinking about Caroline Leavitt when I found these boots in a Lambertville store. But I've been also thinking, lately, about the un-anticipate-able nature of the writer journey, how little we know when we journal our first free sentences or write our first poems or say to someone, I'll be a writer.  I knew nothing; I knew no one; I know but a few things; I love who I know.  I couldn't see it coming, all the way back then, could not imagine now.

I only knew:  I cannot live without the strut and sound of words.

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In which I am asked questions by the brilliant Caroline Leavitt

A few days ago, Caroline Leavitt, the extraordinary, award-winning novelist, hilarious Facebook chronicler, and truly generous soul asked me questions inspired by her reading of Dangerous Neighbors.  I had to clear the grateful tears from my eyes before I answered.  Please visit Caroline's site (where many authors are featured; you should be visiting anyway) for the conversation in which I answered, among other things, stunning questions like this one:

The novel meditates on what it means to have “dangerous neighbors” or to feel lost in a new country (or new way of being) where everything is so rapidly changing. There is also the sense that Katherine wants ownership of her sister in terms of loving her. She wants to keep that world small, even as the world around her--and her sister's world--are expanding. In the end, despite the losses in the book, Katherine actually finds surprising connection and hope. (There’s a spectacular few scenes of her carrying a stranger’s baby all over the Centennial.) Even though this novel is set in 1876, the whole idea of dangerous neighbors is remarkably current to me. Would you agree or is this simply my own interpretation speaking?

And please read here, for my thoughts about Caroline's upcoming novel, Pictures of You.   

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Between Shades of Gray/Ruta Sepetys: Reflections

If I brought just one ARC home from the BEA—the glorious The Report (Jessica Francis Kane)—I was to have traveled home with two ARCs from the ALA convention.  The first, Caroline Leavitt's Pictures of You, did in fact make it into my bag.  The second, Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, was delivered to me at the Egmont USA booth by a fashion-runway-worthy Jill Santopolo, only to be snatched by an eager reader when I oh-so-briefly turned my head.  I had to wait until yesterday, when another copy of the ARCs arrived by mail, to read this book that Jill had loved so much.  It had made her cry on the train, she said.  She had thought that I might like it.

She was right, as Jill so often is.  Between Shades of Gray is an important book—a story that captures the terrifying deportation of a Lithuanian family by the Soviet secret police.  Along with tens of thousands of others, 15-year-old Lina, her younger brother, and her educated, lovely mother are packed onto trains and sent toward the bitter cold of Siberia; their father, meanwhile, is sentenced to a prison-camp death. What will survival look like?  What will kindness look like?  Who is to be trusted?  The losses will be great; in an author's note, we learn that more than a third of all Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians were killed during Stalin's ruthless genocide.  Goodness, however, also prevails, for Lina is strong and she is faithful—losing and gaining, falling in love, making a record of the life she is living through drawings and words.

Simply and compellingly told, endowed with an honorable and serious purpose, Between Shades of Gray is the sort of book that wakens new knowledge in its readers.  Knowledge of a terrible time, absolutely.  Knowledge about the great capacity of the human heart:  that, too.  

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Pictures of You/Caroline Leavitt: Reflections

Lisa Zeidner is not just a beloved writer and essential, smart critic; she's a teacher who has created, at Rutgers-Camden, a place for aspiring writers to burrow in and learn.  I had the pleasure of spending this past Friday with her and among the students of her summer writers' festival; we dug in deep.  Among the many questions that surfaced over our time together was:  How is writerly intimacy achieved by way of the third-person voice?

Saturday evening, alone at DC neighborhood bar where popcorn was a bonafide (and much-ordered) menu item and my salad was wholesome and good, I began to read a book that I've been thoroughly anticipating—Caroline Leavitt's ninth novel, Pictures of You.  Pictures won't be released from Algonquin until January 25, 2011, but that doesn't matter; it's been buzz material for several months now, deservedly so.  It's a story of collisions—a story about an accident on a fog-bound road.  One woman survives.  One woman—a wife and mother—does not.  Accidents are eruptions.  They splinter and derail.  They split the flesh, they burst the heart, they leave lives and strangers raw and entangled.  Leavitt brilliantly captures all of this, placing an asthmatic, camera-toting child at the center of it all, and twisting our readerly expectations.

Many have written about the head-on, page-turning quality of Pictures, and I stand with the chorus; those driving by the Washington Plaza Hotel and looking up to the ninth floor last evening would have noted a light burning bright in an insomniac's room.  That would have been me, barreling through—marveling at the story but also (and here we return to our beginning; I have not forgotten) wishing that I'd had Leavitt's book by my side when the Rutgers-Camden workshop question arose:  Intimacy?  Third person?  How?

Caroline Leavitt, I'd have said.  Exhibit A.  For in Pictures, Leavitt, writing close-over-the-shoulder third-person, gains readers access to the inner-most thoughts and histories of some truly interesting characters.  It's never done for show, never done just because Leavitt can.  It is done to advance the story, to entangle the protagonists, to make plausible and absolute the seismic earth upon which the whole is grounded. Look, for example, at this:

In all the years they've been together, he's never hurt her, never raised a hand or even his voice, but he's smashed five sets of dishes, broken several glasses and a figurine he had bought her as a joke, a Scottish terrier with a tiny gold chain.

Leavitt understands the telling power of the artfully chosen detail—the Scottish terrier with a tiny gold chain, in this instance.  She avoids vapid generalizations, takes no short-cuts, enables us to see not just the things themselves but the ways in which these things are mulled and reconstituted by those who must remember so that they can live forward.  She lets us know what her characters yearn for ("she yearns for cities where people don't make you feel there is something wrong with you because you live there year 'round.") and how those yearnings have been seeded.  Character is story, Leavitt proves again and again.  Suspending our disbelief.  Putting us (right) there.

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