Back from England

Sorry if my absence worried you, but all is well. I was in England for the holidays with the British side of my family. Then I flew to San Francisco for one last mother-daughter vacation before she starts college in February. I'll leave California and my daughter's gap term for future blog posts.

Even without snow, Christmas is special in my husband's hometown. On Christmas Eve villagers light torches at The Catherine Wheel's firepit, many grabbing a pint of ale before or after.

The cousins were happy to be reunited for the occasion with real flaming torches.

A bagpipe player in a kilt leads the procession of hundreds through the ancient village. I apologize for my grainy iPhone photos, but even with a full moon, it was quite dark.

We crossed the Thames River and gathered round a huge bonfire to sing Christmas carols, accompanied by a live brass band. Later at night there's a midnight mass in the Norman church. My father-in-law and his mates ring the bells for services at two churches.

On Christmas morning we go to church. After listening to the Queen's speech on TV, we open presents and go for a country walk in the rain. We warm up with a hot cup of tea and Christmas cake (fruit cake with a marzipan frosting).

Christmas dinner is always roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and brussel sprouts. We pull Christmas crackers and don crowns whilst the Christmas pudding flames. You need to chew carefully to avoid biting into the lucky sixpence.

On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) we drove to Oxford since the trains weren't running. Not much was open. England shuts down for most of the holidays. The busy university town was blissfully free of crowds. I'd spent a year there with my family researching my work in progress, a young adult novel about an American girl at a British boarding school.

The holiday lights in Oxford are marvelous. I love the expression on the woman to the right.

When the trains were back on track, we traveled an hour to London. My daughter wanted to shop on Regent (at left) and Oxford streets, and I needed to check out the holiday lights for a new scene in my novel. I'll have to draw on older memories of clubbing in London. I love my job!

That night we went to Tate Modern, a favorite museum. Then we headed next door for a delicious pub dinner of roast pheasant and a candlelit performance at the Globe's new covered theatre. Pericles is not Shakespeare's best play - it was written with a collaborator, quite possibly a young apprentice - but it was thrilling to see his work staged in the traditional manner with no electricity and ancient instruments.

We walked back over the Millennial Bridge in a drizzle, admiring the view over the Thames. Is it my imagination or is St. Paul's Cathedral not as brightly illuminated as it used to be? I like matching my reading to my travels and have been enjoying Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, a gift from my mother-in-law (thanks!) From this historical novel, I learned that architects volunteered to keep St. Paul's flame-free during the blitz. The narrative is a series of alternate histories based on the protagonist's choices, giving it an existential resonance. I often wonder what my life would have been like if my husband hadn't quit his banking job in London to pursue an academic career in the USA. Three quarters through this 600 page book, I'm loving Life After Life and would recommend it to anyone.

Henry and I toasted the new year with Brakspear Special back at the Catherine Wheel with a blazing fire in the hearth. A belated Happy New Year! I look forward to catching up with you and your blogs. Cheers!

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

In Just One Day by Gayle Forman, an American ditches a dull teen tour to run off with a Shakespeare actor from Holland. Allyson's romantic fantasy becomes a nightmare when Willem abandons her in Paris. Back in the USA for college, she circles into depression. Her helicopter mom expects Allyson to follow her father along the premed path, but the former straight-A student can't handle the advanced coursework. Her endless moping over Willem alienates her roommates too.

The one class that motivates Allyson is a Shakespeare elective. As Allyson contemplates the theme of identity in the plays, she realizes that what she misses isn't only Willem, but the free-spirited girl she was around him. In a logical leap that only a teenaged girl could make, Allyson decides that to find herself she must find the guy who abandoned her, even if this means defying her parents.

"And this is the truth. I may be only eighteen, but it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things."

Just One Day is a good example of an emerging genre called New Adult Fiction. The characters are no longer in high school but not quite independent adults either.  There are consequences from risky behavior (street brawls, drinking and hook ups), but the teen characters don't necessarily learn from their mistakes. In this innovative novel, the search for identity is like an audition in which the characters try on different personalities and sexual orientations like clothes.

Just One Day brought back a lot of memories for me. The summer after high school, I traveled around Europe with my friends staying in hostels, watching opera in Roman ruins, dancing in night clubs and going to a black tie dinner at an American embassy in a rumpled black sundress. During a term off from college, I also had a relationship with a gorgeous Dutchman who then disappeared from my life. Unlike Allyson, I didn't pin all my happiness on being with a guy, although I did relate to the challenge of transitioning to life at college and to the emotional turbulence of those years.

I'd recommend this young adult/new adult novel to mature teens and to adults who want to remember what it felt like to be swept away by the awe of discovery. The descriptions of Europe were so realistic that you can taste the gourmet food. Author Gayle Forman worked as a journalist abroad; she knows her settings and she knows her teens. She writes really well too. A sequel told in Willem's voice, Just One Year, will be released on October 15, 2013. I'd also recommend Forman's If I Stay, which has a sequel in the guy's voice (Where She Went).

Reviewer's Disclaimer: I bought this book on its release (January, 2013) without compensation.

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@Barrie Summy

Back from NYC

Central Park in February

Growing up in NYC, I vacationed in the country, but now that I live in Maine, I crave urban vacations. I actually sleep better in my old bedroom, lulled by the hum of traffic. My homecomings are jamb-packed with old friends, family, dining out, shopping and culture fixes. This trip I also had a fun lunch in Soho with Elizabeth who blogs at About New York and The World Examining Works. My husband and I like to plan our visits around theater, and this time we saw two gems.

Last year in England, we’d heard fabulous things about Kevin Spacey in Shakespeare’s Richard III. The production hopped over the pond to BAM and is well worth a trip to Brooklyn just to see it (playing through March 3rd). Nearly unedited, this historical tragedy ran 3 ¼ hours, which felt a bit long but never dull. Kevin Spacey has a wonderful stage presence, and he mines evil Richard, oddly enough, for comedy. Spacey’s Richard came second only to Sir Ian McKellen’s Richard back in 1992, another British export. There is a movie adaptation of Richard III with Sir Ian too.

We also saw Alan Rickman, playing a curmudgeonly writing teacher/author, in The Seminar on Broadway. Rickman (ie Snape from Harry Potter and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company) commanded the stage with beautiful diction and charisma to spare. The four actors playing his students were pitch perfect. We’d seen Lily Rabe as Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and she showed her versatility in this contemporary role. Theresa Rebeck's hilarious new comedy examines/parodies the challenges of breaking into the literary profession. The Seminar is a must see for writers and readers of all ages (playing through April 1st.)  

My parents and teenaged kids loved both performances. My daughter was especially thrilled to spot actress Emma Stone in the audience. She was brave enough to get her autograph. Emma was beautiful, humble and really nice.  What a fun trip for a 14-year-old girl who wants to be an actress herself one day!

A trip to NYC with my kids makes me reflect on my childhood. Often the media highlights the problems facing teens these days, so I was pleased to read some reassuring stats in the NYT Magazine: The Kids Are More than All Right. What do you think: are teens better off now or back in your day?

Bookstore Watch: Happy Birthday to Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick! The owners will be celebrating their 33^rd year of business this weekend (Feb 24-25) with 30% discounts on all books. This independent bookstore outlasted Borders and is still going strong.

Coriolanus movie review

Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus with Gerard Butler as Tullus Aufidius

Coriolanus is a fabulous modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragic play. The movie remains true to the original language and Italian setting but is visually an action thriller with graphic violence and modern military dress. In Shakespeare's time, Italy was not a nation but a patchwork of kingdoms and independent city-states. Although nominally set in Rome, Coriolanus was shot in Serbia to recall more recent ethnic conflicts. The battle scenes and TV news montages draw disturbing parallels to the current civil uprisings and military crack downs in Arab nations. Shakespeare’s work is clearly still relevant four hundred years later.

Venessa Redgrave as Volumnia

Ralph Fiennes (yes, Voldemort in Harry Potter) plays Coriolanus, the charismatic war hero pushed reluctantly into politics. The belligerent leader fixates on revenge after his own people turn on him. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Fiennes's acting is top caliber. Even more impressive, he directed and produced the film. Vanessa Redgrave, playing his she-wolf mother, still manages to steal every scene that she’s in. Watching the two verbally spar on film is nearly as good as live theater.

Coriolanus, however, is not my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. There are thematic elements of Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Hamlet, but this tragedy is not as well crafted as the others. The story has sudden jumps and reversals of character that are hard to follow. Script editing to create a movie-length version may have exacerbated this problem. The language is not as beautiful, but it is still captivating. 

My favorite line: “There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” 

Bottom line: if you love Shakespeare or war movies, go see this film. Rated R for graphic violence.

 

Disclosure: I watched a preview Blue Ray disk with a movie critic friend. After previewing in December, the movie opened nationally on January 20, 2012 in the USA.  I’m planning on seeing it a second time on the big screen when it comes to Maine.  Movie stills photos and trailer from The Weinstein Company.

How to add blog pages with automatic forwarding or redirecting

 George J. Mitchell Field, formerly a US Navy Fuel Depot and now a public/dog park in Harpswell, Maine.

About once a year I give my blog a makeover.  My aim this time was to integrate my stand alone website (for my artwork and writing) with my blog.  I also wanted to reduce the clutter in my sidebar. On google blogger you can add up to 20 stand alone pages with tabs appearing under the banner (like mine) or in the sidebar. Thanks, Carol, for nudging me to add a homepage.

To add stand alone pages on Google Blogs:

Under the "Posting" tab click "Edit Pages"and then "New Pages." You create a new page like writing a blog post and then publish.

To create the automatic jump from the new page to my website, I added new code to my "Edit HTML" screen of the new page:

angelfire.com's instructions on adding automatic redirecting

This code would also work if you changed blog addresses and wanted to forward visitor to your new site. I changed the lag time from 1 to 5 seconds to accomodate search engines, but it jumps instantly due to the javascript. Don't worry, this is all much easier than it sounds.

More Posting Tips:

To improve your blog, read The Story Siren's Ten Things I Dislike About Your Blog. This is a must read post for all bloggers. The only point I disagreed with was word verification. I get bombarded with spam without it.

Here's my Advice for New Bloggers with your helpful comments.

Bookstore Watch: one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett has opened a bookstore.

Shakespeare Watch: from the latest New Yorker, "Who Wrote Shakespeare," by Eric Idle. Hilarious!

Need a laugh?

 At this crazy busy time of year, don't you feel like jumping off the long pier into summer?

My daughter's second play opens tonight. She is playing one of the 3 Alice's in Alice in Wonderland at her school. This morning her straightener died so half of her hair is naturally curly and the other half is straight. The 2 other Alice's have naturally straight hair. I'm suggesting braids. They say break a leg, not a hair straightener! Her first play, Comedy of Errors, was free of unintended comic errors. For that she played a man. The girl has range. The below YouTube clip was recommended by her Shakespeare acting class buddies.

Laughter keeps us going:

The photo is of Deer Isle, Maine.

Harvard Square: glass flowers, indie bookstores, ethnic food, ice cream and warm memories

I know Maine is called “Vacation Land,” but I need a city fix to unwind. Nature can be too harsh. In late February my coastal paradise was glazed in ice and buried under two feet of melting snow. (It still is.) Harvard Square is only two and a half hours south . . . well, six hours if it’s stormy on the way back.

It was still worth a return to my old home. After growing up in NYC, I went to college and graduate school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My husband and I met at Harvard (left), and our two kids were born in Boston. Our teenaged daughter must have inherited my urban genes because she loved our trip to Harvard Square. Her brother stayed back to compete in the Maine State Championship in Nordic Skiing, and her sad dad had to work. It was a girls-only vacation.

We stayed at the Charles Hotel. Our room overlooked Harvard University and the Boston skyline. Henrietta’s Table served the best Belgian waffles and fresh tropical fruit. There’s a glass-encased lap pool and an outdoor skating rink in this luxurious hotel. We were well pampered, but we didn’t spend too much time in our comfortable room.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History has the most amazing exhibit of glass flowers (above.)  They were made in 1887-1936 by a father and son team in Germany and have been used ever since to teach botany. My daughter, who inherited my glass animal collection, could not believe the flowers were not real. We also loved the gorgeous gemstone exhibit. I got nostalgic walking around campus, but my daughter is too young to be thinking much about college yet. If you ask her, she'll say she wants to go to Oxford University in England after our sabbatical there. Oxford was also her dad's alma mater.

Catering to many international students, Harvard Square has a broad selection of affordable ethnic food. We had lunch at Chutneys (right) in The Garage Shopping Center. A nanini (nan bread+panini+curry+rice) is the best idea ever! The paratha wrap was tasty too. Our meals with samosas and a fresh mango lassi came to less than $10/person. It was not so much fast food as good food fast.

My beloved Herrell's had just shut, but a friend recommended Lizzy's and JP Licks for homemade ice cream. Steve Herrell founded Steve's ice cream in 1973 and sold his first name chain. He then reopened under his last name on a smaller scale. Both local chains still exist but not in Harvard Square. My daughter liked JP Licks, but it wasn't the same as sitting inside an old bank valt painted like a fish tank while spooning salty-sweet malted vanilla ice cream with Heath Bar - Reese's smoosh-ins, laughing with a friend. That was the flavor of college for me.

For dinner we had delicious Korean and Japanese food at Shabu Ya (above), the former Shilla. Their specialty is Shabu Shabu, a one-pot meal of thinly cut beef and vegetables that you cook in a savory broth at your table. It was a good sign that most of the clients were Asian. Another good sign: my husband and I have been dining there for over two decades. Two locations ago, Henry first met my parents for dinner there. My parents also met and fell in love in Cambridge 50-something years ago. It's a special place for me.

A friend treated my daughter and me to tea at Café Algiers (left), another old college haunt of mine. At the table beside us, two women were chatting in French. Sipping fresh mint tea and nibbling baklava, we felt transported to Algeria. It has the best atmosphere if not the best tea. Still, nobody rushes you and it's quiet, a  great place to catch up with an old friend.

Afterwards, we found terrific sales on clothing and browsed in bookstores. The Harvard Book Store, featuring new and used books, has been there since my college days. Several other independent bookstores were long gone, sadly. The adorable Curious George store is all that’s left of the old WordsWorth. Tween/teen chapter books were in the basement along with some adult crossover fiction. I was pleased to spot Ellen Booraem’s Small Persons with Wings sparkling (silver glitter letters!) on a display shelf.

We ran out of time to do everything on our list, like making earrings at the Boston Bead Company, sipping hot chocolate at Burdick's or scoffing cupcakes at Sweet. Sure beats mud season in Maine.

Happiness Watch: The 2010 Gallup poll rated American congressional districts by national well-being, looking at indicators such as emotional status, work satisfaction, eating habits, illness, stress etc. The NYT reporting last Sunday, tracked down "America's Happiest Man" and shared a fascinating map of national happiness.

Theater Watch:

Al Miller at the Theater Project in Brunswick, Maine has adapted Shift by Charlotte Agell to the stage.  I'll be attending the opening on Friday night, March 11th. The play runs on weekends through March 20th. Charlotte has been advising this teen production based on her dystopian novel for young adults.

Lots of Shakespeare in NYC this spring.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman & Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice, 2 reviews

Since Hanukkah starts tonight, I’m reviewing a novel and a Broadway play with Jewish characters. Allegra Goodman is one of my favorite authors. I enjoyed most of the stories in Total Immersion. One of the best novels I’ve read about science was her Intuition. Goodman researches her subjects thoroughly and then brings the workplace alive with passionate but fallible characters. Her most recent novel, The Cookbook Collector, would appeal to a wide audience. It tackles a broad range of topics from rare cookbooks to new technology start-ups.

The Cookbook Collector follows two half Jewish sisters in their twenties, pragmatic Emily and dreamy Jess. Emily has started a dot com business in Silicon Valley, and Jess is a philosophy graduate student at Berkeley who works at an antiquarian bookstore. Jess is in a relationship with an environmental activist but is attracted to her aloof employer, a man twice her age. Drifting and confused, Jess is drawn to Jewish mysticism. Emily is having problems of her own, managing a long distance romance with a competitor while weathering the astronomical ups and downs of the dot com industry in the 1990s. The close relationship between the sisters tie the disparate narrative strands together.

The third person narration includes multiple perspectives like a late 19th century novel, allowing for full development of even minor characters. The diverse cast of characters felt real down to their exasperating personality tics, and they avoided stereotypes. I loved seeing a young woman play a stellar CEO. Workplace romances resulted in unexpected consequences.

Despite the myriad plot strings and perspectives, the narrative is coherent and flows well. The Cookbook Collector is literary fiction but as easy and pleasurable to read as commercial fiction. This book was meant to be enjoyed by the fire on a long winter’s night. The warmth comes from within the pages:

“Who could resist cracking books like these? He wanted to open them right now, one after another on the kitchen table. He wanted to shuck these books like oysters in their shells.”

The Cookbook Collector also opens with one of my favorite quotations from Shakespeare's As You Like It: "I can live no longer by thinking."

Disclosure: I bought this book from an independent bookstore when it was released this summer. The author did not respond to my request for an interview.

Check out last week's post for my list of good gift books from 2010.

Shakespeare Watch: 

Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice 

Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice live on Broadway

While in NYC for Thanksgiving, we saw The Merchant of Venice on Broadway. Al Pacino was phenomenal as Shylock (better than Dustin Hoffman in the same role in 1989) and Lily Rabe was an equally strong Portia. The staging was terrific too. It was one the best performances I've ever seen, as good as Sir Ian McKellen playing Richard III at BAM. The strong cast could rival the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. The Americana actors avoided English accents and spoke the lines of Shakespeare naturally with emotional resonance. I was moved to laughter and nearly tears. My teenaged children loved it too, sitting on the edge of their seat for 3 hours. This performance is well worth a trip to NYC on its own.

The Merchant of Venice is playing through January 9th at the Broadhurst Theater. If you can't make it to NYC, rent The Merchant of Venice filmed in Venice. Al Pacino is really good in the movie, but he's even better live on stage. That's rare in a Hollywood actor.

The Merchant of Venice, the film (2004)

Happy Hanukkah!

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@Barrie Summy

A Tempest of Scattered Leaves

Looking at the fallen leaves, I feel empathy for the trees. At the peak of creativity, my colorful ideas are scattered all over the place. Last Friday a storm straight out of The Tempest blew through Maine. Rain lashed sideways and trees toppled. We lost power. In the dark, I sketched out an outline for a new novel (really plot fragments that could be woven into a narrative later) and quit work for the day.

Then I met two friends for a two-hour lunch at Trattoria Athena, a new Greek restaurant in Brunswick. I highly recommend the gyros and catching up with old friends. Years ago we used to get together weekly for playgroup. Our sons have remained close friends, but we had drifted apart lately. We laughed over how much busier we are driving our teenagers to activities now than when they were toddlers.

Not only am I a soccer mom, I’m a Shakespeare mom. My daughter plays center forward and on weekends Shakespeare takes center stage in her acting class. My son quit soccer to play evil Antonio in The Tempest, with rehearsals every day after school and tech work on weekends. I drive miles for the Bard. Luckily, my young adult novel “as u like it” is about teen actors and Shakespeare so I’ve been observing rehearsal and acting classes, getting double credit for parenting and work.

On the road I rake up inspiration for my novels. It’s hard to know where to draw the line between art and life. Am I writing about teen actors who love Shakespeare because of my kids or do my kids love Shakespeare and acting because I’m writing about it? I like to think that my young adult novel could plant the passion for Shakespeare. It keeps me going…mile after mile after mile.

Photos: back step, front yard maple, backyard maples, view from Bradbury Mountain in Pownell

Shakespeare Watch:


Helen Mirren is playing Prospero in a Miramax production of The Tempest! It looks absolutely amazing (movie release date: 12/10/10.) At my son's school, a talented girl was also cast in the lead role of Prospero. The character is actually more believable with the gender switch.

I'm always on the look out for Shakespeare themed novels. Don't you love the cover of this one?

Illyria by Elizabeth Hand takes Twelfth Night as an inspiration for an illicit love story between cousins who discover the joy of theater. Although Illyria was published (2010) as young adult fiction in the USA, the topic of incest, the 1970’s setting and the literary style make it better suited to an adult audience, in my opinion.

Hand is a Maine author, but Illyria was first published in the UK in 2007. Thank you, Beth Kephart, for the recommendation. No free products were received.

Cake Calamities and Clematis

When I hadn’t posted my blog all day, my dad emailed and my husband came home early from work. They feared the worst. I was baking my famous sponge cake. Honestly, it was not my fault this time. In a World Cup Soccer moment, my twenty-year-old cake mixer took a dive when the ref wasn’t watching.

I dropped my book (okay, maybe I shouldn’t have been reading) and raced the dog to the batter that had splattered on the floor. “If you want to bake a cake, you have to break some eggs.” In my case, two batches. My apologies to the neighbors, who may have passed by the screen door. I don’t usually swear like a fish wife.

The birthday girl poked her head in to ask, "Is it safe?"  No glass shards this time. I am now the mother of two teenagers. The older one is canoeing for 7 weeks in the wilderness so the more recently minted teen is an only child this month. As much as I’m missing my son, I’m really enjoying the one-on-one time with my daughter.

I’m sure many parents would disagree, but teenagers are more fun than younger children. It’s the age of both reflection and impulsive choices, of maturing into a unique person. I love the intense discussions and even the questioning. You don’t get unconditional love; you have to earn it.

Although it was her birthday, my 13-year-old daughter gave me a wonderful gift. She first said people over 35 can’t be cool, but then she made a few exceptions. According to her I’m a “cool mom.” The reason is “I don’t try.”


Our cool day in Brunswick, Maine:

• Hot cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon twists at The Wheelhouse Café
• Run into 2 neighbors who don’t recognize my grown up daughter
• Buy novels at Gulf of Maine Books and pick up free Mockingjay tattoos
• Try on high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes at Wyler Gallery
• Meet Dad for lunch too at Wild Oats Bakery and Café
• Sink into a comfy sofa to watch Letters to Juliet at Eveningstar Cinema (trailer below)
• Read the ARC of The Ruby Notebook by Laura Resau (review coming in September)
• And a weekend birthday party with friends to see the movie Eclipse

Romance in Tuscany with a Shakespeare theme. What’s not to love?

As for the images, they are of our clematis that usually peaks on my daughter’s birthday, but this year was 2 weeks early. Every year the roots grow deeper, the vine climbs higher and the blooms are more exuberant. Just like my beautiful daughter.

What else is blooming in my garden: late lupines, hydrangea, lilies, pansies, lobelia and yummy Early Bird and Cherry Tomatoes. For more Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts go to May Dreams Garden. I’ll come visit tomorrow while my daughter is at her first paid babysitting job. Don’t blink. They grow up fast.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine: review

I always read with a pencil, marking perfect sentences in the margins. By page 21 of The Three Weissmanns of Westport I had mined 3 literary jewels that sparkled with dry wit. Many more followed. Here’s a sample:

“It was not that the woman boasted. Quite the opposite. She was modest to a fault, the fault being that she insinuated her modesty, deftly, into almost any conversation, proclaiming her insignificance and ignorance, thereby assuring a correction.”

According to the jacket flap, The Three Weissmanns of Westport is a modern adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. The New York Times noted that author Cathleen Schine does more than copy the plot; she actually captures Jane Austen’s sensibility. I would add that Jane Green, a women’s fiction author who lives in Westport, is another influence in both style and subject. In fact, Jane Green moved to a beachside cottage in Westport after her divorce, met her new husband there and blogged about this novel. Schine borrows from the two Janes, but she spins an original tale in her own voice.

Betty Weissmann has been abandoned by her husband of nearly 50 years: “He glanced at his wife. She was wearing her old white bathrobe, and curled on herself on the couch, she looked like someone’s crumpled, abandoned Kleenex.”

Betty’s middle-aged daughters aren’t much better off. The eldest is a divorced librarian who pines for her grown sons and fills her hours rereading classic novels: “Annie was matter-of-fact but the facts were never hers.” Miranda’s “Awful Authors” ruin her literary agency; their salacious memoirs are revealed to be frauds.

Short on fortune, the three women move from Manhattan to a relative’s beachside cottage in posh Westport, Connecticut. Wealthy retired Jews and WASPs are the landed gentry of the 21st Century. Schine captures both settings well to my particular satisfaction. I grew up in Manhattan and used to visit my Jewish grandparents in Westport. On hearing the title, my parents said, “We know the Weissmanns of Westport.” Nope, this is fiction, but like the best social satire, it is true to life but far more amusing.

“He was eating a piece of dark orange cheese. She noticed it left a narrow oily trail on his lip, like a snail.”

Shakespeare Watch: On March 22, 2010 Arden is publishing a 19th century play "Double Falsehood or The Distressed Lovers" which is supposedly based on three missing plays by Shakespeare.

Fort Popham Beach

March means mud season in Maine . . .  shall we escape to the beach?

Fort Popham reminds me of other half finished work.

Lobster traps featured in S.A.D. and now in a work in progress.

An old wharf remembers better days.

Imagination is at home on an island.

 Sea stars sparkle.

Shakespeare Watch: Macbeth opens on Thursday March 12, 2010 at the Theater Project in Brunswick, Maine. Director Al Miller blogged about why he staged Macbeth with teenaged actors. I've been observing rehearsals to research my young adult novel. I love the genuine delivery and passion that teen actors bring to the famous lines.

Creative Insomnia

Sometimes my characters wake me with their chatter. My job is to listen to those voices, only they don’t keep normal hours. I stow index cards and a pen in the bathroom so as not to wake my husband. Henry sighs in the morning when he finds my nocturnal scribblings. Many of my author, artist and composer friends share this affliction or blessing, depending on your point of view. The problem is you can’t control when inspiration will hit.

During the day, I always have a notebook in my bag. Snippets of conversation are game, so is the way a storm dropped snow mushrooms in a brook (thanks, Alida, for showing them to me.) I collect laughter and sorrow. I have a hard time answering the question: “How many hours a week do you work?”

I do try to keep normal hours and write while the kids are at school. I’m there for them when they come in the door and need to talk. Once they start homework, I catch up on email and blog comments. I read other people’s novels in the evenings. I try to get my story out of my mind so that I can sleep.

Still, sometimes my best writing comes from those crazy nights. This happens more frequently during revision. I need extra time to see the entire manuscript as a whole. The adrenaline flows, and I can visualize every word. I get into a zone, and I won’t stop until I finish the draft. I love writing and revision, but it is my vice.

On my desk is the perfect first chapter. At least it’s perfect until it’s time to revise again. In the mean time, I’m catching up on sleep. Perfection can only be a dream.


Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray is not about writing a novel, but it captures the process.

For those of you suffering from a more debilitating form of insomnia, I recommend Insomniac by Gayle Greene. It’s a layman’s review of the disease and its treatments (there is no known cure) as well as a memoir of a woman’s struggle to live with chronic insomnia. Gayle interviewed doctors, researchers and insomniacs. She presents the complex information in a format that is both easy to understand and engaging to read. Insomniac was a New York Times "Editors' Choice" when it was released in paperback last summer. Gayle and I share an agent, which makes us agent sisters (according to Barrie Summy.)

Gayle's list of insomniac writers includes: Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Lamott, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Dickens, "maybe even Shakespeare" and Joyce Carol Oats, who provided the jacket blurb: "Impassioned and fascinating."

The book opens with this W.C. Fields quotation: "The cure for insomnia? Get plenty of sleep."

Blog watch: dovegreyreader scribbles and 3 other UK book bloggers are hosting Not the TV Book Group with online discussion of selected novels. Cynthia@Catching Days is posting a series on “reading like a writer.” A fun new blog, Books in the City, lives up to its name. She Brews Good Ale cooks good food too: a multi course meal prepared entirely from local ingredients and paired with locally brewed beer, recipes included. sixtyfivewhatnow posted artsy rainy day photos.

Theater watch: excellent New York Times review of As You Like It, playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through March 13 and directed by Sam Mendes. I just figured out what I want for my birthday.

My Photos: sunset at Bailey Island, dawn from our back door, "snow mushrooms" in the woods behind our house, our mudroom entrance.