i call this meeting to order! with a stately wooden gavel that exists only on the internet!
you guys, i have a SERIOUS book recommendation for you today. in fact, this book is so intense, i can only read it in small doses! and this isn’t some build up for a joke– i’m serious! this book totally blows my mind! rather, i should say, this WRITER blows my mind.
if you haven’t already met her, please allow me to introduce you to amy hempel:
amy hempel writes short stories. and really, that’s an understatement. her stories might be short in length, but they pack a punch that novelists can only *dream* of creating. in fact, ms. hempel is one of the most masterful wordsmiths i’ve ever come across. she writes the kind of lines that WHALLOP you upside the head, that make you stop to catch yr breath, that SLAY you with understated, bare bones emotion.
it takes most authors pages and pages to create characters and build emotions. amy hempel can do it in two paragraphs.
since i feel completely inadequate about trying to describe her writing, here are some examples:
from a story about a women who has lost her veterinarian husband:
Here’s a trick I found for how to finally get some sleep. I sleep in my husband’s bed. That way the empty bed I look at is my own.
* * *
from a story about a woman dealing with her best friend’s death:
On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a “Fear of Flying” class. “What is your worst fear?” the instructor asked, and I answered, “That I will finish this course and still be afraid.”
(and)
I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign to her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby, come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.
* * *
seriously, i really do have to take a break between each story, even when they’re only three pages long. but, lest you think they are all sad or depressing, here’s a line from a story about a women who deals with her grief through knitting:
We watched the end of the movie, then part of a lame detective program. Dale Anne said the show owed Nielsen four points, and reached for the TV Guide.
“Eleven-thirty,” she read. “The Texas Whiplash Massacre. Unexpected stop signs were their weapon.”
“Give me that,” I said.
* * *
this is the kind of book that adds poetry to yr life, that seeps into yr heart and enhances yr perceptions. after reading one of hempel’s stories, i start to *notice* things more– bright colors, the sound of a stranger’s laugh, the way my pen releases ink onto paper. the echoes of her words clarify and magnify and sharpen my emotions until even the most mundane of feelings dazzles me.
like i always say: read it. i KNOW you’ll love it.
four out of four pants, PLUS PLUS PLUS!
+++++++++++++++
ok, book club members. now it’s yr turn!
LINKS
OMG!! GG!!! check out the first five minutes of the season premiere here! and then… discuss.
audrey tautou = coco chanel = perfection.
Oh that book sounds wonderful! I’m a huge fan of the short story. I’m sold!
I’ve been looking forward to the next installment of the Posh Deluxe Reading Club for over a month, because I have a great recommendation! Barbara Vine’s The Minotaur. I’ll start by saying this book has something for everyone–it’s an intriguing mystery, razor-sharp character study and great cultural commentary no matter what your usual reading preferences are. However, for my girls–and some boys (as Sarah’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 experience taught us never to make generalizations based on gender)–out there who are fans of Victorian literature, particularly of the gothic genre, this book is TOPS.
The Minotaur’s got all the juicy elements of your classic gothic novel: large, spooky estate, a governess/nanny/nurse character that the audience can’t help rooting for, mysterious family secrets, a forbidden wing. But it’s a sardonic send-up set in 1960s England with a liberal Swedish nurse narrating the twisty events. If you’re a fan of the Brontes, Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe or le Fanu, The Minotaur is for you.
I liked this book a lot. I meant to send you my copy after I finished it a while ago, but it got lost on the list of to-dos. It was one of those that I thought while reading… I bet Sarah would really enjoy this.
meredith, i am SO reading that. you basically checked off everything on my “best book ever” checklist except for maybe “dazzling food descriptions.”
ellen, hi!
There are actually lots of food descriptions, because one of the main characters is a caterer! But, you know, it’s British food, so it all sounds vaguely revolting.
What a great recommendation! Another book I still can’t get through without stopping every few pages to cry profusely is Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking.” (It’s about the year following her husband’s death and her life without him.) Can I get a boo to the hoo?
so, apparently, everyone else hates reading right now. would it help if i brought donuts to the next meeting?
I’ll have to add it to my list. I’ve been reading things that haven’t been particularly intriguing but are at least interesting and important. Wait, I take that back, I have started something that was intriguing. I picked up Tom Wolfe’s ‘I am Charlotte Simmons’ for $1 at Barnes and Noble the other day so I’m now 200 pages into that sixty-gajillion page oeuvre.
I’ve also been working my way through
Making the big move : how to transform relocation into a creative life transition (like I said, important but not particularly intriguing)
Save the cat! goes to the movies : the screenwriter’s guide to every story ever told (I’ll admit, this one has been more entertaining than I thought it would be)
and
One person/multiple careers : a new model for work/life success (which has been interesting because it’s started to give me insight on how I might want to try and set up how my various work lives function in the future.)
I think I’ll stick you book in my queue at the library and tackle it next.
Well considering I’m currently reading yet another cheesy romance, I don’t think I’m contributing much to the book club. But if you’re feeling like a bit of romance, I’d recommend Nora Roberts’ latest Tribute. I was thoroughly entertained.
Hey, I have that book, and have read some stories in it, and liked them, and then stopped reading it… I’m not reading anything very good; basically the whole time I was in Israel/West Bank I read the New Yorker, as it was easy to carry around and pull out on the bus.
I am now reading What Was Lost, which is a pretty good debut novel from a young writer from Birmingham (UK). I picked it for my book club, and I think it’s okay but not awesome. But it gets such good reviews from Guardian and Independent and stuff, I assume it will get better; we’ll see. It’s kinda young adultish, so I’d be curious to hear what you thought, if you got around to it…
I’m totes a fan of reading, but I have to say, my attention’s been diverted to Chuck Bass and his geometry lessons. OMG CHUCK BASS THREE MORE DAYS, BB!!