Margot/Jillian Cantor: Reflections

I took this photograph a few months ago in a part of Philadelphia I'm sure my friend Jillian Cantor knows well. The words stopped me. I had a hunch they'd come in handy some time. I had no idea just how handy, however, until I read Jillian's wonderfully conceived and executed new novel, Margot (Riverhead, September 2013).

For there, at the heart of this novel, in the heart of Philadelphia, in the middle of last century, is a young thirty-three year old woman whose identity has been masked by many small lies and a sweater whose one tight sleeve never reveals the ink on her arm. She is a law firm employee, a paralegal student, a responsible young woman whom no one knows. She lives in a small apartment with her silent cat. She remembers love and may be falling in love. She is Margot Frank, Anne's older sister, and she, history be damned, is not dead.

Her sister's diary has just been released as a major film. Gossip—and gossipers—are closing in. She is inclined to run when others might walk, to see dangers where the easy-going Americans don't, to pretend that she is Polish when she is not. And as her past and present worlds collide, she must decide what to hold onto and what to reclaim and how much of herself she should blame for her sister's death.

Reviving Margot Frank as the American Margie Franklin is such a smart reversion of history that I had to stop myself, as I read, from going all fan-girl Facebook on Jillian. (Well, I did surcease at the 50-page mark to tell her how cool I thought this whole thing was.) And Jillian, who once lived near Philadelphia, accurately portrays the city at mid-last-century—the streets, the delis, the Reading Terminal Market, John Wanamaker's, the Main Liners. Just as accurate, I suspect, is Jillian's portrayal of the Franks' years in hiding, the Green Police, the horrors of the concentration camps. Too many writers of historical fiction seem to think they have done their job if they bundle a few era-specific brand names, dress styles, and street signs together, then tell the story that would have fit the present day. Jillian's research goes far deeper and comes, I absolutely believe, from a real desire not just to write a story, but to empathize, to know. Still, none of that research obfuscates the tale. None of it gets in the way of the language itself. This is a book that can be read in one sitting, and that will be remembered long after that.

There's suspense here, history, sister love, guilt, and streets that go dark but do not sleep. I have big expectations for this novel when it is released, and a whole lot of respect for Jillian.

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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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The Salt God's Daughter/Ilie Ruby: Reflections

A few weeks ago, Jillian Cantor, a novelist and friend, mentioned Ilie Ruby and her new book The Salt God's Daughter to me in a Facebook message.  It was, Jillian said, one of the best books she'd read in a very long time, and she was rooting for it.  And so when Ilie herself wrote and offered me an early look at the book, I of course said yes.

I'm so happy that I did.

Readers of this blog know that I am a gigantic fan of Marilynne Robinson and Housekeeping—its vivid attention to place and details, its evocation of lonesomeness and ache in two sisters who lose their mother too soon.  With its lush and outrageously unexpected particulars (about the sea and sea lions, about the artificial waterfalls that disguise man-made drilling platforms, about all varieties of moons, about bougainvillea blooms, about the old hotel that becomes a home and salve), Ilie's book put me in a Housekeeping state of mind, as did her wonderful Ruthie, whose story this primarily is.  Ruthie is one of two sisters.  She and Dolly lose their mother—mercurial, poetic, forever vanishing—precipitously.  They are shuffled here to there, and in the process they grow wild.  They will be hurt, especially Ruthie, by the savage greed of others.

And then Ruthie meets the love of her life.

Ruthie's man is not like regular men, however.  He spends a lot of time at sea.  His textures are slightly different, and so are his eyes, and when Ruthie becomes pregnant with his child, the slight strangeness that has permeated these pages morphs into something tangibly odd, deliberately magical.  Enough so that those who one day meet Ruthie's daughter, Naida, begin to call her Frog Witch.

The Salt God's Daughter is ripe with tides and moons, the smell of ocean, the lingering sensation of pink petals and blue nights.  It's luxuriant writing, thoughtful, pleasingly moody, rustled through with wind.  Yet, no matter how surreal the story becomes, it offers real places, true landscapes, every day truth.  I share my favorite paragraph:

A good death could make everyone feel better about your life. When Saul Green died, Mrs. Green tied a light blue ribbon around the thin green trunk of the Sentry Palm in the courtyard.  Those who passed by it would recognize the symbol of gift, a sign that reminded you to notice the gifts all around you, mostly the ones that faded into the landscape of your life. Mr. Green considered himself exceptionally lucky and he told his wife every day.  This, she said, was the mark of a good marriage—when both partners considered themselves lucky because of the other.  But more, when they acted on the gratitude they felt  This had nothing to do with giving presents.  This had everything to do with the gift of awareness.  If you could do this, your partner would always feel as if your life together was a gift.

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