Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category

Ann Seymour’s I’ve Always Loved You is a book everyone interested in writing historical memoir should read. It is a remarkable example in emphasizing how to sustain a narrative voice when history is a big part of the memoir.

Fascinating and heartbreaking are the first two words that come to mind after reading Ann Seymour’s beautiful tribute to her family, especially her father, as well as all those who served in WW2.

Seymour writes achingly beautiful prose as she gives us a view of WW2 through the eyes of an enchanting, gregarious child, who doesn’t understand why Daddy has gone to war and will never return. But the well woven story goes beyond the eyes and ears of a loving daughter. I’ve Always Loved You moves between the diaries and journals her parents kept and the actual documented words of the power brokers of Imperial Japan in such a way as to give anyone a more fully rounded picture of WW2, which is an accomplishment worthy of applause.

“Only an ephemeral wall separates the past from the present,” was observed by Seymour’s father when on the battlefield he awoke from a dream of being with his wife to the utter amazement that she wasn’t by his side – he was alone.

Pick up this book, read it, and better understand WW2 through a remarkable mix of memoir and facts.

I also published this review on Amazon where you can purchase Ann Seymour’s I’ve Always Loved You, if you’re not near an Indy book store like Book Passage.

Gentle Reminder: Do something great today. Pick up a pencil or belly-up to the keyboard and write your Mother Memoir like all TellTale Souls. Doing so may be the beginning of your book length project on family history.

I was lured into Blair Kilpatrick’s memoir, Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music, the moment I saw the charming cover depicting a happy little girl holding her accordion, although I was surprisingly unprepared for the extent of the adventure she’d lead me on in this extraordinary musical memoir.

Before I even opened the book, a small voice in the recesses of my mind encouraged me to find my BeauSoleil album, Bayou Cadillac, which I hadn’t listened to for ages. Find it I did, and as the first beats of Bon Temps Rouler resounded,  I settled back in a comfortable chair and darn near didn’t get up until I’d read this entire, enchanting book.

To my delight, within the first dozen pages, Kilpatrick talked about how she had excitedly ripped the plastic from her newly purchased BeauSoleil cassette, which shows off the battered red Cadillac convertible, upended in a swamp. Now the hook in me worked itself deeper and deeper. Her compelling, obsessive journey into Cajun-Creole music progressed with her quest to learn to play the accordion, and pay it well, after she fell in love with all things relating to Louisiana’s famous folksingers and musicians, whose French lyrics tell stories through song and melodies merge souls through accordion, fiddle, guitar, and triangle.

In, what I consider a love story, Kilpatrick shares the secrets she learned from the fathers of this genre from learning to play “by ear” to knowing you must practice a tune 100,000 times, if you want to succeed.  From her illuminating prose, I now understood more of the nuances of this music I love. I learned to hear the fiddles talk in their call-and-response style and to feel the easy contracting and expanding bellows of the accordions, as those who played their pearly keys lead the tunes.  Moreover, the commanding personalities of the giants of Cajun-Creole music came to life as Kilpatrick peeled back the layers of developing friendships with her friendly, though passionate, conversational style of writing.

Kilpatrick had me “vibrating in some kind of universal rhythm lock” by the end of the book; and by then, too, I wanted to play in her band, Sauce Piquante, even though I know how to play not a one of those beckoning instruments.  She has a way of expressing in writing exactly what I think I’d feel if I had been so fortunate as to have taken this journey into the heart of Cajun-Creole music.

She even includes a ‘mother memoir’ within her Accordion Dreams memoir, when in chapter fifteen she gives us a look at the women in her Eastern European family, as her “mother laughed and cried as the memories came back.” For me, that’s the beauty of writing ‘mother memoir’ because you can’t help but be taken back to your beginnings, just as Kilpatrick couldn’t help but be taken back to the roots of Cajun music. “And you find yourself back at the beginning, at the place where you began.”

I fell in love completely with the “laughter and tears, love and loss.  Holding on and letting go. The mysterious dance of memory linking past and present – and carrying us forward, into the days ahead.”  The resonance of Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music will stay with me for a lifetime.

Link to Blair Kilpatrick

The Story Woman asks men and women to write  bio-vigettes capturing the character and spirit of their mothers to join the ranks of TellTale Souls.

I’m posting this book review on an historical novel by C.W. Gortner because I think The Last Queen is a great read and highlights the difficulties women have had throughout history attempting to be taken seriously whether they are royalty or not.  Gortner will be honored this October 15th at an event for National Reading Group Month by Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter. See links below for more information.

Juana’s courage, strength, and passion amazed me as The Last Queen came of age so vividly under C.W. Gortner’s admirable pen. This historical novel is fraught with crushing battles of power and chilling intrigue throughout the courts of her parents, Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and of her husband, Philip of Flanders, as the Infanta of Spain attempts to take her rightful place on the thrown she inherited from her mother.

My soul was struck as I witnessed, through Gortner’s well paced story, the agony Juana endured as her faithless husband raped her night after night, as she was forced to leave her first born behind in Flanders and another child taken from her breast by her father to raise as his own, and as she ultimately succumbed to the captivity that often befell women of royalty in those times. Had she been driven mad by her treacherous husband and her scheming, duplicitous father as they vied for her position or had Juana la Loca, as she came to be known, been wrongly labeled and shut away by the two men she learned to loathe?

That question is one for which we don’t have an answer, but I felt compelled to honor her sanity and believe she would overcome the perils in her path to rule over the people of her beloved Spain.  Her fate was sealed in loneliness and sorrow with no escape. I felt her loss as well as my own.

Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco October 15th event. Our partner, Whole Foods Mill Valley, is graciously supplying specialty foods to promote “Shared Reading.”

C. W. Gornter

Two other fabulous authors will also be reading for this event: Tanya Egan Gibson, How to Buy a Love of Reading, and Kathi Kamen Goldmark, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You.

The Story Woman asks men and women to write a bio-vignette about a loved one to become a TellTale Soul.

Teresa LeYung Ryan’s, Love Made of Heart, is a stirring look at the intricacies of familial relationships, including mental illness and abuse, that for Ruby Lin, the narrator, have taken the bright, clear color from her world as she struggles to grow up as an American girl drowning in a sea of distinctly Asian values.

Although the intricacies of the mother-daughter bond are the overall theme of this heartfelt story, there is a convoluted push and pull in Ruby’s psyche as she clashes with her father, her Chinese husband, and in-laws, while leaning heavily on the powerful goodness and understanding she discovers in her sister and an adopted Jewish grandmother who has become her beacon in this violent coming of age saga.

LeYung Ryan has Ruby slowly awaken through self-reflection to a universal truth as she works over time with her psychologist. Dr. Thatcher encourages her to unravel the conflicts and mysteries within by speaking with a clarity that resonated with Ruby (as it does for all of us), “Your mother wears a pair of funny glasses which have been tinted by her personal experiences. They’re her special glasses to view and cope with the world.”

So, you see, this story goes beyond the confines of culture and speaks to both the dark and the light sides of love at work in the very heart of all human relationships.

Teresa LeYung Ryan’s link.

The Story Woman encourages all sons and daughters to write a short, true tale (a bio-vignette) about a woman who had a significant impact on their lives for possible submission in the TellTale Souls collection.

A Joyful Encounter: My Mother, My Alzheimer Clients, and Me

A Memoir by Lynn Scott                                 The Story Woman Book Review

Well, what can I say? I am overwhelmed with feelings after reading Lynn Scott’s, A Joyful Encounter, My Mother, My Alzheimer Clients, and Me. Her memoir brought up passion and emotion in me about my Alzheimer’s afflicted mother on so many levels that I know will stay with me forever. It is hard to describe or even fully recognize this gamut of feelings that came over me when reading this collection of short, true tales written in Scott’s honest, lyrical prose as she interacts with her Alzheimer clients, all the while discovering realities about her relationship with her long deceased mother.

Scott gently, but powerfully, leads readers into the hearts and minds of this frequently fearful, heartbreakingly confused, sometimes hilarious, often enchanting, but mostly misunderstood group of elders who have love to give, and, let’s not forget, an innate need to receive love – even if you think they aren’t aware that you are there.

This book should be read by every man, woman, and teenager, whether or not one has interactions with folks diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  There is so much humanity and understanding of the human spirit woven into Scott’s stories that the confines of disease are transcended. Her wisdom, lessons, and insights into the power of healing when love is expressed span all kinds of interpersonal relationships.

I wish I’d had this Joyful Encounter as my coach and companion during the poignant final three years I spent with my mother as her caregiver prior to her death eleven years ago. Scott’s book made me laugh, cry, and wish I could have my mother back for just a day, even one more hour.

And then my mother became my muse and was the impetus for my TellTale Souls collection of memoirs, true tales capturing mothers’ character and spirit. I’ve designed the front cover of my book with this picture of Mom.

 The Story Woman asks daughters and sons to write bio-vigenettes capturing their mothers’ character for TellTale Souls.

I just finished reading Saints in Limbo by River Jordan. I was lucky enough to hear her read and talk some about her life and writing this June during the Women’s National Book Association’s annual conference in Nashville. She is a full-blown delight, who talks a mile-a-minute, and you hope she’ll never stop. I can’t put my finger on the exact genre – this book seems to be in a class by itself. So entrancing is her brand of fiction that you want it to be true, and perhaps it is.

                                    RIPE FOR BOOK CLUB PICK

Rare Blend of Mystery, Magic, Metaphor, and Melody

River Jordan has an amazing way of pulling you in and making you believe mysterious, other-worldly `things’ in Saints in Limbo, and I don’t quite know how she does it. (But then that’s the genius of her writing.) I think it sneaks up on you while you’re sleeping, while her captivating characters are playing their tunes and haunting your dreams. Her story is compellingly melodic and a deep look into the heart and soul of human relationships – well, maybe even some not so human…

“Strange what age does to a person. Sets him free of every regular demand and then turns right around and ties him down again in fear.” These words by Jordan are what this book exemplifies, and as we, readers, emerge ourselves in this tale as members of an extended family in Echo, Florida, we all struggle with this perplexing notion. River coaxes us to come `round, too, as she nudges her characters toward enlightenment.

Now who would believe Velma, an old southern woman, can’t venture beyond the length of the colored strings she’s tied to her front porch? But you begin to realize these strings are the ties that bind, her memories. Then Jordan wants you to believe in the magical beauty of transformation as the simple, smooth rock Velma was given by a strange, shape-shifting fellow, who has inexplicable way of appearing out of nowhere and disappearing into thin air at will, glows and pulsates toward self-discovery for everyone in her riveting story…And you do believe. And we know the spirit is set free when we stop hiding from the truth and allowing fear to overwhelm us.

Early on, Velma’s son Rudy, who loves to love women and hasn’t done much more than that with his life, and ultimately realizes he’s never given his mother much supportive thought, says, “Can’t bury the past, Mama. It’ll just keep pushing its way to the surface. You know that. And whatever those things are – scouts, you call `em – well, they’ll just come around trying to dig it up.” In the end, Rudy, understands the veracity of his own words as he teeters between known and unknown spaces and places. And so do we.

Saints in Limbo should be made into a movie. It’s heaven and hell, choice and redemption, growth and stagnation, fear and acceptance, and faith and denial all rolled into one heck of a lyrical ride through the enigmatic power of hope and love, where you’re transported to another place, not another time. This story is for all time.

The Story Woman asks you to become a TellTale Soul by writing memoir, a bio-vignette, about your mother.

Links to River Jordan and Women’s National Book Association

A Spicy Treat: Passion & Emotion in Memoir

Need a great summer read? Look no further. I have another memoir to recommend for your enjoyment written by a friend of mine, Patricia V Davis, who seems to be forever on tour speaking and presenting Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece all over the country.

You’ll love and identify with Patricia’s insights,  in retrospect, on life, love, cultures, friendships, conscious mothering, running a business in an adopted country, wifely duties, and a domineering mother-in-law, generously spiced with wretched dogs (and their owners), flying cockroaches,  baseball bats, harlot’s sauce, and a no-account woman who smells bad.  As she cavorts through a couple decades, often laughing at herself, you see innocence retreat and a strong, self-reliant woman come into full bloom, holding no grudges and willing to share herself and the sauce with all of us.

The Story Woman reminds you to honor a loved one with a bio-vignette capturing their character.

Link to Patricia V Davis You may also enjoy her website and blog.

First Mine for gold, then Write Memoir

Hello, all you writers and authors and artists from across the board.  I recently read a great little book by Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you about this book and add it to my new Book Review blog category.

By the way, my reviews aren’t confined to the memoir genre. From the inception of my blog, which wasn’t that long ago, one of my main purposes was to give voice to a wide range of nonfiction and fiction writers as well as artists in general who have caught my eye and my spirit. If you’d like me to post a blog about you and your work, please contact me and we’ll go from there.

I believe the inspiration we get from each connection we make with art, whether through books, paintings, sculptures, theatre, dance, or music breathes life into our beings as we discover new ways to view our world.

Abigail Thomas’ book, Thinking About Memoir, is oriented towards crafting the story of one’s own life, whereas my guide book, Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls’ Essential Guide to Tap Memory & Write Memoir in Five Acts (yes, that’s a mouth full!) is all about looking at someone other than oneself – it’s about honoring a loved one with a bio-vignette that captures that loved one’s character. Both of our books, however, are meaningful guides to writing in general; they speak to a wider audience than memoirists to be sure.

Book Review: Great things come in small packages, so Abigail Thomas gets kudos for a job well done. She is honest, funny, and tells on herself, which, I believe, is the best way to teach.

Thomas’ rambling style of instruction isn’t so much about technique as it is about giving us stimulating exercises that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, but result in remarkable insight on how to write memoir well.
The guide, at just 108 pages, is so packed with activities that a writing instructor could use it for a semester-long course and still not exhausted all of Thomas’ unique ideas. Let’s suffice it to say she’s a delightful task master. From the beginning when she asks us to write three word sentences so we have nowhere to hide and our writing won’t take up extra space to asking us to write two pages of what we don’t remember sheds a lot of light on her brand of Thinking about Memoir.

If we aren’t afraid to dig deep, zero in on details, write an honest account, make a habit out of writing, and learn to invent our own structure, this book is a gold mine.

Link to Abigail Thomas.

The Story Woman asks you to write a bio-vignette about a loved one to honor someone other than yourself.

Yup, here is a terrific new novel by Tanya Egan Gibson – How to Buy a Love of Reading, and the book is every bit as engaging as the title. She a new writer of fiction living here in Northern California. I attended her very first reading the other night at Book Passage in Corte Madera, cheered her on, bought an autographed copy, and read and read and read some more. This book is a huge chunk of change – I think it was ten years in the making - full of emotion and passion, reality shows, and protagonists in search of love and self with a surprisingly fresh twist.

I would characterize Tanya Egan Gibson’s delicious debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, as love stories between three couples even though ‘love story’ isn’t the premise of her book. Or is it?  But these love stories come with a twist, wherein the power of choice prevails as the characters literally rewrite their stories, their lives, and their fate. Actually there are three tales of love within two parallel stories.

In this is complex novel Gibson’s characters are very much alive, but, after all is said and done, it is not the people, but rather the story or stories themselves that become the power brokers in Gibson’s artistic hands.

Gibson is a word wizard with an uncanny knack for building character to the extent that the couples, Carley and Hunter and Bree and Justin (Rock Star), walk right out of the pages and pull us into their lives where the bonds of convoluted love link them as though they have no choice.

Within How to Buy a Love of Reading there is a story being written by the unsuccessful author, Bree McEnroy, for the main protagonist, Carley Wells, after Bree, is ‘bought’ by Carley’s mega-wealthy parents to write a book just for her in the hope that she’ll never again say that she has never met a book she liked. This inner story, conceived by Bree as a 21^st Century reality television show based in a Medieval world, portrays a third couple, Buck and Jules, as they struggle with the challenges of love, reality vs. fantasy, and choice, essentially mirroring the main story of the present-day connection between Carley with Hunter and Bree with Justin, and, for that matter, the stories of love and lovers throughout time.

Gibson demands one’s attention through her energy, wit, and irony and then asks the reader to read between the lines to get the point – all the while navigating a rapid river.  Great read, great work out!

The Story Woman ask sons and daughters to write Mother Memoir to keep spirits alive one story at a time.

Links to Tanya Egan Gibson and Book Passage

Last night I finished reading the book, The Orange Wire Problem and Other Tales from the Doctor’s Office, just off the presses, written by Dr. David Watts. His first book of stories, published in 2005, was Bedside Manners; you may have read it. This new book is another delight, a treasure, comprised of vignettes shedding more light on the doctor-patient relationship. Watts is not only a doctor, he’s a gifted writer and poet, and his brand of storytelling comes across elegantly on every page of his book.

I’m not suggesting you write like he writes. Don’t. To take on the style of someone else is the best way to choke your story.  If you attempt to write by imitating the technique and voice of someone else, you will kill the authenticity of your story. Find your unique voice by trusting yourself and the process. To be sure, the stories I’ve collected for the TellTale Souls’ anthology, written by “ordinary” people, are beyond compare.

The Orange Wire Problem review I wrote is relevant to our focus on writing bio-vignettes. In this review, copied below, I give a couple examples from Watts’ book on how he gets his points across succinctly to the reader; the first speaks to writing with honesty about the fallibility of science and the mystery of healing; the second illustrates the art of dialogue and thought comingling to a humorous conclusion.

The author, David Watts, is a medical doctor friend of mine. If he can write, so can you. You know how doctors scrawl illegibly, and I don’t know about a scientist capturing character, but I’ll be darned, he did it!  In case you’re not sure, I’m spoofing here when I question his ability to write, as you’ll see when you read what I wrote about his book.

 As I’ve often said, writing a bio-vignette will prove to be the journey of a lifetime for you, but I know it’s not always so easy to begin your tale. David Watts confessed of being afraid to write when he first began his journey, and look where it took him. Yes, maybe you are, indeed, inspired to write a short memoir to honor a loved one, but you just can’t seem to get it started – the task can be daunting, but it is well within your reach. You can do it and join the ranks of hundreds of TellTale Souls, even doctors, who have gone before you.

Review:

David Watts charmingly reveals the challenges of both doctor and patient in thought provoking essays (bio-vignettes) that you can’t put down or easily forget. He brings unabashed humor and poignancy front and center from behind the door in the doctor’s office as he tells the tales of decades of his ministering to the sick. 

Throughout The Orange Wire Problem and Other Tales from the Doctor’s Office, Watts speaks reverently and poetically about the human condition when confronted with disease or just the maladies of being human. He is refreshingly honest and serious about the mysteries of science and healing when he says, “I see the mysterious in the way some people heal faster than others. I see it rise in us and bend us certain ways as we are confronted with illness or mortality, as if it waits for this, as if mystery always intends to rise up when we least expect it.” 

Looking at another side of him, Watts’ sense of humor sparkles in an incident when a somewhat irrational female patient manipulatively turns the tables and is concerned about Dr. Watts’ prostate, after he’s reluctant to order the irrelevant enzyme tests she demands. She says, “You know, sometimes when men…well you know, the men they have prostate problems like women have menopause and sometimes men have, well you know, prostate mental problems…”  He’s thinking, “…she was diagnosing my prostate by way of my brain, the culprit responsible for the glitch in the orderly procession toward her beloved enzyme tests.”  In his inimitable way, he sums up, “Learn a little somethin’ every day. Prostate mental problems, yes indeedy.”

 And then there are the beloved insurance companies: Ya gotta love him for the 17cent check from MediCal, labeled “full payment for services rendered,” he has framed on his wall, as well as his unwillingness to fight big government for payment. You can almost see Watts shrug his shoulders as he moves beyond the bureaucracy to give his patients what they need.

 We should all be so fortunate as to have Dr. Watts as our personal physician, after all he’ll prescribe a pill that he suggests you don’t swallow, just keep it in your pocket or in a locket around your neck – most likely your symptoms will disappear. And we’re right back to mysteries.

 Thank you, David Watts, for a bit of your soul.

Daughters and sons write bio-vignettes to honor their mothers & loved ones.