celebrating Alyson Hagy, a writer we can all root for

For the past many weeks, Alyson Hagy has been touring the country with her fine third novel Boleto, a book that has been celebrated in media ranging from The New Yorker and the Washington Post to the Chicago Tribune and Star Tribune.  Ron Hogan, writing for USA Character Approved, concluded his thoughts about the book with the words, "If there's a better novel published this year, it's going to have to be pretty spectacular." And of course I've been singing about Boleto ever since I sat down at Christmas to read the ARC. 

This weekend, Boleto is the lead novel reviewed in The New York Times Sunday Book Review—an achievement for Alyson that makes me, her friend, incredibly proud.  Bruce Machart was given the responsibility.  He writes, among other things, "Hagy often dazzles with her descriptions of the Wyoming landscape and wildlife. Whether it’s the corral of the Testerman ranch, the rugged passes of the Black Bell Ranch or the depressed outskirts of Anaheim, the settings glimmer with well-chosen metaphors."  He also uses the words entertaining and entrancing to describe her opening pages.

Yes, in fact, that's true.  I've known Alyson for a long time now.  I've read nearly every published word she's written, and I continue to be mystified by her continuing, and continually strengthening, powers.  I'm mystified, too, by the way she finds time to report back about her life amidst her travels, teaching, adventures, her raising of a remarkable, words-bound son.  Alyson has friends all across this country.  She somehow makes time for us all.  And never once—in all that she has achieved, in all that she can do—does she so much as lean toward attitude.  Never once does she fail to ask, "And how are you?"  She's just doing her thing, living her life, finding her stories, and thank goodness the world has noticed, because heaven knows, Alyson Hagy does not trumpet herself, does not ask for that kind of attention.

Alyson Hagy is that quality of person—and writer—we can all root for.

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The Coffins of Little Hope/Timothy Schaffert: Reflections

These words from The Washington Post's Ron Charles drew me to The Coffins of Little Hope:

The Coffins of Little Hope is like an Edward Gorey cartoon stitched in pastel needlepoint. Its creepiness scurries along the edges of these heartwarming pages like some furry creature you keep convincing yourself you didn't see.

You're in, right?  You want to know more?  I bought the book, I got in and I stayed, from the very first line:

I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin's-egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn't quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like.

 .... to the last:

You were young only minutes ago.

Reading the pages in between was like watching the lights of a carnival go on—the hurly burly commotion of color, the hyperkinetic blink of possibility, the flavorful oddness of a sui generis cast of characters.  There's Essie Myles, an 83-year-old obituary writer for the local, small-town paper.  There's the possible kidnapping of a possible daughter (yes, that's right, we never know for absolute certain if the kidnapped daughter is a scam or a true loss).  There's the final installment of a famed young adult book that's being printed by Essie's press.  Parts of that book get leaked (or are those parts the real book?)  Gentle weirdnesses come and go (but have they left forever?).  These small-town people face all kinds of trouble (or they make it up), and Schaeffert can't say no to the sweet tangent. 

It's a wild bob and weave.  It's profoundly and preposterously well-imagined.  There are lines here, plenty of them, that most writers would give their polished eye tooth to lay a claim to.  Taken together, Coffins is a delight—a book that you cannot wrangle with.  Just let it happen to you.  Stumble off, dazed.

     

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Building Book Buzz in Bethesda

My friend Ivy has a talent for sending me things that fit just right into my life (sometimes it's a book and sometimes a cheese dish and sometimes a tool to save my aching back) and yesterday, she sent this link to a Donna St. George Washington Post story titled:  "Wanted:  Young readers to build book buzz."

It's a story about the teen readers who gather at the Montgomery County library in Bethesda to talk books.  Not just the books already on shelves across the country, mind you, but books provided through a galley review program initiated by the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association.  What the teens have to say about the books tell publishers, librarians, and writers quite a lot about what excites and what does not, and about where a book might be headed.

I loved reading the story, because I love the honesty of teens, and I love what happens when they gather within libraries.  (The photo above, for example, was taken just ahead of a talk I gave in a Wisconsin school library earlier this year, and I was amazed by the buoyancy of those readers, by the questions they asked and the things they confessed to.)  I love, too, how librarians and publishing houses are working together to fuel the fervency of the book-loving young.

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