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Taking Whacks at Lizzie's Legend

2/25/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
You go to school, you get a master's degree, you study Shakespeare and you wind up being famous for plastic glasses.
​Sally Jessy Raphael
Host of Sally (1983-2002)
Born February 25, 1935
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S. J. Raphael

MY Book World

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Robertson, Cara. The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story. New York: Simon, 2019.

If most readers are like me, what they know about one historical figure, Lizzie Borden, can be summed up in the following ditty:
 
Lizzie Borden took an ax,
Gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

 
After reading Robertson’s book, I see that there is so much wrong with this rhyming escapade. One, if  Lizzie Borden did kill her stepmother and father, Borden was never proven guilty. The actual perpetrator whacked Mrs. Borden only nineteen times. And certainly Mr. Borden did not receive forty-one chops. I had always assumed that Lizzie Borden was convicted and had served time in prison. But no.
 
This book takes readers through the entire trial process beginning with a detailed description of the murder scene. Briefly, someone axes Mrs. Borden and then an hour and a half later, when Mr. Borden has returned to the house, someone axes him downstairs as he’s napping on a sofa. The police investigators, lacking obvious clues, begin to suspect Lizzie, who remains almost preternaturally calm throughout the initial investigation, neither crying nor showing any sign of agitation, as Robertson writes (33). Andrew Jennings, Lizzie’s counsel, addresses the jury: “’your task is not to unravel the mystery.’ Instead, he said they must ask themselves: ‘Have they [the prosecution] furnished the proof, the proof that the law requires, that Lizzie Andrew Borden did it, and that there is absolutely no opportunity for anybody else?” (208). And throughout the past one hundred years there has existed such a great desire, on the part of some, to solve the mystery.
 
Near the end, Robertson summarizes these various interpretations that begin in the 1950s. For example, there is “the widely held speculation, which gained currency in the early 1990s, that Lizzie Borden committed the murders after enduring years of sexual abuse by her father [she was thirty-two]. The bedrooms that opened onto each other, the dead mother, the powerless stepmother, the special understanding between father and daughter symbolized by the ‘thin gold band’—all crystalized into a suddenly obvious solution, a solution that seemed to explain not only the identity of the killer but also the very brutality of the crimes” (284).
 
In any case, Robertson’s thorough research (some eighty pages of Notes) and lightly treading interpretation make for a fascinating read, particularly if you are a true crime fan, as I am. The book abounds with photographs, as well, mostly provided by the Fall River, Massachusetts, Historical Society.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

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A Writer's Wit: Jane Hirshfield

2/24/2022

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What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless. 
​Jane Hirshfield
Author of Ledger: Poems
Born February 24, 1953
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J. Hirshfield
TOMORROW: My Book World | Cara Robertson's The Trial of Lizzie Borden 
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A Writer's Wit: Haki R. Madhubuti

2/23/2022

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They who humble themselves before knowledge of any kind generally end up the wiser and as voices with something meaningful to say.
​Haki R. Madhubuti
Author of Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language
Born February 23, 1942
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H. R. Madhubuti
FRIDAY: My Book World | Cara Robertson's The Trial of Lizzy Borden
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A Writer's Wit: Christopher Bram

2/22/2022

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Being a Boy Scout saved my life. I was a bookish, introverted kid, shy and withdrawn, unhappy and easily bullied. I was also gay, although I didn't know it yet. I should've been miserable. But being a scout got me out of myself and into the world.
​Christopher Bram
Author of Surprising Myself
Born February 22, 1952
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C. Bram
FRIDAY: My Book World | Cara Robertson's The Trial of Lizzie Borden
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American Dirt is Gold to Some

2/18/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
​Toni Morrison
Author of Paradise
​Born February 18 1931
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T. Morrison

My Book World

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Cummins, Jeanine. American Dirt. New York: Flatiron, 2020.

This novel, an Oprah Book Club winner, has a lot going for it. One, the novel takes readers to a dangerous place (actually many dangerous places) without having to leave their comfortable seats rooted on American soil. Next, it is well plotted. So much of fiction depends on believable coincidence, and sometimes writers stretch that credulity. But from the very beginning, Cummins lays out the plot perfectly, to the point that you say to yourself, Well, that could happen. Third, the author’s character development is superb. One feels what it would be like to have sixteen members of your family assassinated by a notorious drug cartel, grab your young son, and head out of Mexico to el Norte, seeking American dirt for sanctuary. There are many bad players in this novel, but the miraculous thing is (and so true in life, as well) there are many good characters who help this woman and son to piece together a new life after tragedy. The novel is well worth the time, well worth the tears you will shed. If only our tears could translate into help for these poor migrants who flee their countries for a better life.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Cara Robertson's The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story

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A Writer's Wit: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

2/17/2022

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A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
​Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Author of Understood Betsy
Born February 17, 1879
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D. C. Fisher
TOMORROW: My Book World | Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt
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A Writ'er's Wit: Henry Adams

2/16/2022

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Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
​Henry Adams
Author of The Education of Henry Adams
Born February 16, 1838
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H. Adams
FRIDAY: My Book World | Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt
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A Writer's Wit: Harold Arlen

2/15/2022

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When your daemon is in charge do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.
​Harold Arlen
Author (composer) of "Over the Rainbow"
Born February 15, 1905
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H. Arlen
FRIDAY: My Book World | Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt
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Winfrey Takes on Trauma

2/11/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.
Lydia M. Child
Author of 
Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times
Born February 11, 1802
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L. M. Child

My Book World

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Perry, Bruce D. and Oprah Winfrey. What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. New York: Flatiron, 2021.

As the subtitle suggests, Perry and Winfrey exchange ideas concerning childhood trauma. Her words are represented by a pale blue font, and his are in black, making the dialogue more obvious. I’ve read other books about how childhood trauma affects adults in later life, if the trauma is not dealt with in a satisfactory way. I know from my own life that this is true. But this book takes my understanding a bit farther. I now come to realize that the child is both vulnerable to trauma but, under the right circumstances (therapeutic), also resilient.

​Dr. Perry’s expertise in neuroscience helps expand our understanding of how the brain works. Therapy can help a traumatized child or adult, but the therapist must meet the child at his or her level of brain development. Perry tells the story of one boy whose brain is still functioning at the brainstem level, but he’s older than that chronologically. Oprah courageously shares with readers her lifelong struggle to come to terms with abuse she suffered as a young child. Both writers brought me to tears at several times throughout the book. Oprah tells a story of when she is on a movie set, and the director shoots a scene in which she must tuck in a child at night. They must do the take several times, because Oprah keeps going at the situation as if she’s making the bed. The director must finally demonstrate what he means, and Oprah realizes no one ever tucked her in as a child. She had no idea how to do it.

The book’s closure involves Oprah sharing with readers how she finally forgives her mother and also resolves other issues on the woman’s deathbed. We all feel the sense of relief and catharsis that Winfrey feels. She had actually been on her way back to California, when she realized she must return to her mother and end things properly. A real act of courage, which, in reading this book, may help others to do the same. When we stop asking “What’s wrong with you?” and instead ask, “What happened to you?” we, as a society, may be in a better position to help our children and adult children to cope with their lives. I don’t say this often: a must read.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt--An Oprah Book Club Recipient

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A Writer's Wit: William Allen White

2/10/2022

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My advice to the women of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.
​William Allen White
Author of A Puritan in Babylon
Born February 10, 1868
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W. A. White
TOMORROW: My Book World | Perry and Winfrey's What Happened to You?
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A Writer's Wit: Alice Walker

2/9/2022

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The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
​Alice Walker
Author of The Color Purple
Born February 9, 1944
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A. Walker
FRIDAY: My Book World | Perry & Winfrey's What Happened to You?
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A Writer's Wit: Lisel Mueller

2/8/2022

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Everything is autobiography, even if one writes something that is totally objective. The fact that it's a subject that seizes you makes it autobiographical.
​Lisel Mueller
Author of Alive Together
Born February 8, 1924
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L. Mueller
FRIDAY: My Book World | Perry & Winfrey's What Happened to You?
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Stories of Madness Everywhere

2/4/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
​Betty Friedan
Author of The Feminine Mystique
​Born February 4, 1921
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B. Friedan

My Book World

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Wolitzer, Hilma. Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories. With a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. New York, Bloomsbury, 2021.

These thirteen delightful stories date from 1966 to 2020, from mid-sixties angst over the “woman’s place” to the best story I’ve yet read about the early days of the Covid pandemic. And yet, in terms of tone (humorous and sardonic) and theme (woman on the verge, but not, because the narrator must keep herself together), the stories all feel as if they could have been written at the same time—so unified is the writing. Wolitzer’s stories are a prose analogue to the perfect poem: they are compressed, metaphors are subtle, and each one brings pleasure that lasts.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Oprah Winfrey's What Happened to You?

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A Writer's Wit: Gertrude Stein

2/3/2022

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We are always the same age inside.
​Gertrude Stein
Author of The Making of Americans
Born February 3, 1874
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G. Stein
TOMORROW: My Book World | Hilma Wolitzer's Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories
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A Writer's Wit: Burton Lane

2/2/2022

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When I got finished, Gershwin paid me the ultimate compliment. He said, “Boy, even I couldn’t do that.”
​Burton Lane
Author (song writer) of "Too Late Now" 
Born February 2, 1912
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B. Lane
FRIDAY: My Book World | Hilma Wolitzer's Today a woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories
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A Writer's Wit: Langston Hughes

2/1/2022

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Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
​Langston Hughes
Author of The Weary Blues
Born February 1, 1902 [Some sources say Feb. 1, 1901]
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L. Hughes
FRIDAY: My Book World | Hilma Wolitzer's Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories
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