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Philomena, the Book

7/28/2015

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A WRITER'S WIT
         I am soft sift
    In an hourglass—at the wall
Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift
    And it crowds and it combs to the
         fall . . . .
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Born July 28, 1844

My Book World

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Sixsmith, Martin. Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search. New York: Penguin, 2013.

After viewing the recent film Philomena several times, I sensed there was much of the narrative missing, and when I read Sixsmith’s book, I saw that my hunch was correct. While the film, with Dame Judi Dench starring as Philomena, focuses mostly on the mother’s search, Sixsmith’s book must otherwise spend nearly two-thirds of the narrative on Michael Hess, or Anthony Lee, Philomena’s long lost son, and her son’s search for her. The narrative, on film, might have been better served if it had been made into a miniseries largely because it is the two stories combined, the fact that mother and son search out each other, that makes it so compelling and poignant.

Anthony Lee and Mary McDonald—whose unwed mothers are allowed to "nurse" them while still toddlers, in the questionable haven known as Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, County Tipperary, Ireland—are both adopted in 1955 by a family from St. Louis, Missouri. The babes’ birth mothers, Philomena and Margaret, full of shame, and manipulated by many of the sisters, are coerced into signing away their rights to ever see their children again.

So what kind of life does Anthony Lee/Michael Hess have in America? On the one hand, he becomes part of a family that is able, financially, to care for him and Mary. However, two of Michael’s older brothers seem noncommittal at best, and a third one is downright hostile; he physically and emotionally abuses Michael. Michael’s adoptive mother is nurturing, if in a clinging manner, and Doc, his adoptive father, is, at turns, aloof, then ever meddling, trying to make a "man" of Michael.

Sixsmith does an admirable job of recreating Michael’s life from the time he enters America until he dies from AIDS in 1996—with a great deal of help from Michael’s long-term partner, Pete Nilsson. In the years between, the reader learns of Michael’s education, his time at Notre Dame, where he seeks help from a less than sympathetic priest about his sexuality. The reader learns of Michael’s education on the streets, particularly in Washington, DC, where he pays his own way through law school at George Washington University (his father having withdrawn all financial support when Michael refuses to attend law school at Iowa University). A furtive life of seeking out sex with men that begins in Chicago during his undergraduate days then escalates in the DC area, where bars abound and he discovers than many other underlings who work in congress are gay.

The entire narrative—Philomena’s wrenching story in the abbey, where some of the nuns treat the mothers and their children despicably, Michael’s childhood, his secret life as a gay man working for the Republican National Committee in the nation’s capital, a mother and son's mismatched search to find one another—is not only heart wrenching, but it serves the reader in a number of other ways, as well. Sixsmith’s narrative exposes a brand of Catholicism that hopefully has been exorcised from the world. He also revisits the AIDS crisis as it occurs during the Reagan years, when, because its victims are largely gay men, the US government elects to do little or nothing about it, creating a race in which modern medicine desperately attempts to catch up, something it has never quite been able to do.

We must remember . . . all AIDS stories, like all holocaust narratives, create a condition in which one is too many and a million are not enough. They will be with us always, and we must listen to each one.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2015


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READ MY ‘BEHIND THE BOOK’ BLOG SERIES for My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"


Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
03/12/15 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
03/26/15 — "The Best Mud"
04/02/15 — "Handy to Some"
04/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
04/16/15 — "Men at Sea"
04/23/15 — "My Long-Playing Records"
04/30/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
05/07/15 — "Snarked"
05/21/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
05/28/15 — "Bathed in Pink"
Watch for more podcasts later this summer!
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Calgary in July

7/26/2015

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Author at Calgary Tower
A WRITER'S WIT
Married people should never travel together: they blame one another for everything that goes wrong . . . .
George Bernard Shaw
Born July 26, 1856

A Family Visit

A long time ago I met my second cousin, Bud, when I was but nine and he was fifteen. He'd just received his learner's permit from the state of Montana, where he lived with his mother and father. His late father, George, was my maternal grandmother's youngest brother. ¶ Bud and his wife, Judy, had invited Ken and me to visit them in Calgary a number of times, and this summer we made it work! The four of us had a great time exchanging information, albeit second-hand, about our families, and Judy and Bud were gracious enough to share their home with us. Below, by way of a slideshow, are a few photographs from our brief stay. ¶ Canada, our sometimes ignored neighbor to the north, is an easy trip. We've been there three times since 2010. Coming or going, US citizens clear customs in Canada, and the people are friendly and welcoming. Sorry if I sound like a travelogue, but from coast to coast (all ten provinces and three territories), it's a great place to visit (and live)!
NEXT TIME: My Book World
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New Yorker Fiction 2015

7/25/2015

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A WRITER'S WIT
Learning is the art of ignoring.
Elias Canetti
Born July 25, 1905

A Bit of Class

PictureJavier Jaén
July 27, 2015, Tessa Hadley, "Silk Brocade": In 1953, two young Bristol women, who run a dress shop, agree to make a wedding ensemble for a friend who appears to be rising in a class-driven British society. ¶ Ann, the dressmaker, really thinks she’s better than the woman for whom she’s making the dress (her friend seems to be marrying up), but in the end Ann receives nothing for her work because the young bride-to-be dies abruptly of diphtheria. Hadley, who is quite a wordsmith, creates what might be the real climax of the story (and not the woman’s death) with the following, when all the principles attend a picnic at the wealthy man’s deer park:

And somehow that afternoon they achieved that miraculous drunkenness you get only once or twice in a lifetime, brilliant and without consequences, not peaking and subsiding but running weightlessly on and on.
From this wild stupor the story spirals downward toward Nola’s death. And worse, the narrative jumps to the future, 1972, when the dressmaker’s teenage daughter accidentally leaves a jacket made from the discarded brocade from years before . . . she leaves it behind in the very home where the ill-fated wedding was to have taken place (now a public building)! Either climax, the picnic or Nola’s death, is like an orgasm that doesn’t quite make it to fruition. The story, pardon one, sputters to an end.
And, amid all the complications and adjustments that ensued, she forgot to collect her jacket when they left, though she didn’t confess this to her mother until months later. A jacket hardly mattered, in the scheme of things.
Indeed. Not quite up to the author’s usual excellence. Hadley’s novel, Clever Girl, was released in April.
Javier Jaén, Illustrator.

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READ MY ‘BEHIND THE BOOK’ BLOG SERIES for My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"


Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
03/12/15 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
03/26/15 — "The Best Mud"
04/02/15 — "Handy to Some"
04/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
04/16/15 — "Men at Sea"
04/23/15 — "My Long-Playing Records"
04/30/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
05/07/15 — "Snarked"
05/21/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
05/28/15 — "Bathed in Pink"
Watch for more podcasts later this summer!
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New Yorker Fiction 2015

7/17/2015

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A WRITER'S WIT
Along come the scientists and make the words of our fathers into folklore.
S. Y.  Agnon
Born July 17, 1888

Angry NIGHT WALKER

PictureKevin Cooley
July 20, 2015, Lauren Groff, “Ghosts and Empties”: A woman in her thirties living in northern Florida takes winter evening walks, in part, to dissipate a certain anger. ¶ Groff creates the appearance that the narrator is on one long walk, but, of course, she is presenting to the reader an accumulation of walks. Through these sojourns the reader understands a bit of the woman’s ire: a world of decay from her very own mixed neighborhood to melting glaciers to the Pacific Ocean’s swirl of plastic water bottles, to the silent dying off of innocent species, to a certain unfaithfulness of a husband she truly loves, and, by way of extrapolation, probably the two sons who will grow up to be like their father.

“Soon, tomorrow, the boys will be men, then the men will leave the house, and my husband and I will look at each other crouching under the weight of all that we wouldn’t or couldn’t yell, and all those hours outside walking, my body, my shadow, and the moon. It is terribly true, even if the truth does not comfort, that if you look at the moon for long enough night after night, as I have, you will see that the old cartoons are correct, that the moon is, in fact, laughing, but not at us, we who are too small and our lives too fleeting for it to give us any notice at all.” 
Groff’s third novel, Fates and Furies, will be out in September.
Photo by Kevin Cooley.
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Photos of the American West 2015

7/8/2015

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Author at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
A WRITER'S WIT
How wealthy the gods would be if we remembered the promises we made when we were in danger.
Jean de la Fontaine
Born July 8, 1621

On June 11, my 67th birthday, Ken and I set out for the Oregon coast, in part, to complete my quest to visit all fifty states. On the way we encountered some spectacular scenery. Below I've attempted to share, without inundating the viewer, I hope, what is only a fraction of what we saw.  We needed far more than two weeks to make the 4,300 mile trek!
NEXT TIME: My Book World

READ MY ‘BEHIND THE BOOK’ BLOG SERIES for My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story.
Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
03/12/15 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
03/26/15 — "The Best Mud"
04/02/15 — "Handy to Some"
04/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
04/16/15 — "Men at Sea"
04/23/15 — "My Long-Playing Records"
04/30/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
05/07/15 — "Snarked"
05/21/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
05/28/15 — "Bathed in Pink"
Watch for more podcasts later this summer!
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New Yorker Fiction 2015

7/4/2015

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A WRITER'S WIT
Punishment of a miser,—to pay the drafts of his heir in his tomb.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born July 4, 1804

So True to Life

PictureMatt Dorfman
July 6 & 13, 2015, Alejandro Zambra, “Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1”: Zambra presents a Chilean story-within-a-story, in which the Covarrubias twins, Luis and Antonio, conspire to be different by parting ways. ¶ Yet at a particularly crucial period in their lives—both enter the legal profession—they further conspire. This time one twin sits for the other at an exam. In a satiric move, the author ends the brief story with a “comprehension” quiz about the Covarrubias twin narrative. (No key is provided.) The English version of Zambra’s collection, My Documents, was released in April.
Illustrator, Matt Dorfman.

NEXT TIME: Photographs of the American West


BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
03/12/15 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
03/26/15 — "The Best Mud"
04/02/15 — "Handy to Some"
04/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
04/16/15 — "Men at Sea"
04/23/15 — "My Long-Playing Records"
04/30/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
05/07/15 — "Snarked"
05/21/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
05/28/15 — "Bathed in Pink"
Watch for more podcasts later this summer!

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New Yorker Fiction 2015

7/1/2015

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A Note to Readers: I haven't posted for almost three weeks, having taken some time off. Now, not only have I two recent New Yorker stories to profile but also a host of photographs from a road trip throughout the West, including the invigorating Oregon coast. Find the stories below. Come back later in the week to view the photos. Thanks for stopping by! RJ
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 A WRITER'S WIT
Discouragement seizes us only when we can no longer count on chance.
George Sand
Born July 1, 1804

A Flowering Indeed

PictureGray 318
June 29, 2015, Louise Erdrich, "The Flower": In 1839 frontier America, Wolfred, a seventeen-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old Ojibwe girl kill Mackinnon, their trader captor, and move south to flee the area. ¶ Erdrich so often takes the reader into a world that no longer exists, yet one that has always existed, a world of Indians that is not layered underneath our neat architecture of farms and cities but exists parallel to the air we breathe. We need only inhale to see it, to follow it. This world, where a white boy and young native girl can see and hear things the rest of us can’t, is brought to life by Erdrich, who has taken great pains to learn of it and make certain we never forget its haunting riches. “The Flower” is as real as any story by Dickens and just as satisfying. Erdrich’s novel, LaRose, is due out in 2016.
Design by Gray 318

NEXT TIME: Photographs of the American West


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BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"


My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
03/12/15 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
03/26/15 — "The Best Mud"
04/02/15 — "Handy to Some"
04/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
04/16/15 — "Men at Sea"
04/23/15 — "My Long-Playing Records"
04/30/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
05/07/15 — "Snarked"
05/21/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
05/28/15 — "Bathed in Pink"
Watch for more podcasts later this summer!
0 Comments

New Yorker Fiction 2015

7/1/2015

0 Comments

 
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A WRITER'S WIT
Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Born July 1, 1646

Humanity's Horrors

PictureGareth McConnell
June 22, 2015, Ben Marcus, "The Grow-Light Blues": Carl Hirsch, twenty- nine, works for Mayflower, a research and diagnostics corporation that, among other things, develops non-food forms of nutrition. ¶ Lucky Carl is selected to test Mayflower’s most daring product, a grow-light for humans. What may be most notable about this narrative—besides its scathingly sharp satire—is how Marcus creates a Carl Hirsch who pretty much hates humanity at the beginning of the story: “Tonight’s party was in one of those long, skinny city apartments you’re supposed to verbally fellate with praise” (67). But by the end, after Mayflower has essentially starved Hirsch not only physically but spiritually, as well, he meets a woman and they have a child. In the last few paragraphs he softens: “Someone new is among us. Someone special” (73). Yet he is always Carl, suspicious, skeptical: ". . . he would work as hard as he could to keep the verdict on that question, along with every other question that pressed in, as far away from his family as humanly possible" (73). Marcus is the author of a collection, Leaving the Sea.
Gareth McConnell, Photograph

NEXT TIME: More New Yorker Fiction

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    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

    See my profile at Author Central:
    http://amazon.com/author/rjespers


    Richard Jespers's books on Goodreads
    My Long-Playing Records My Long-Playing Records
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