Spring Snow & Before Goodbye by Mimi Cross

March is capricious in Maine. After an abnormally warm winter, six inches of snow fell on the second day of spring. On Monday I put on skis to walk my dog, but most of the snow has melted now. Late March through April is mud season for us. Anything is possible. You need a good sense of humor and excellent outerwear to live this far north. Spring snow makes me want to curl up by the fire with a good book.

Before Goodbye by Mimi Cross is a new young adult novel about music, romance, and grief-induced addiction; it will cross over well to an adult audience. After her musical muse dies in a car crash, Cate can no longer play the classical guitar. This 16-year-old sophomore seeks escape in the foggy stupor of Ketamine. David, an 18-year-old wounded athlete, uses sex like a drug to forget the pain of his brother's suicide. These two troubled teens from dysfunctional families bond over their love of indie music. Their dark romance is told in alternating voices and is set in a posh New Jersey suburb.

What makes Before Goodbye special is the musician-author's knowledge of music and her lyrical writing style. The words sing from the page, begging for guitar accompaniment. I often paused to read lines out loud, to hear their rhythm. My teenage daughter is a singer/songwriter so I related to that part of the narrative on a personal level. The book was at its strongest when music found symbolic resonance in the plot and in Cate's character development:

"I do not play the instrument; I am the instrument. I serve. My fingers move up and down the fretboard, skip, skip, skip across the strings..." 

"I put the guitar away, wondering suddenly as I do, what it would feel like to never take it out again. To close the case forever, like a coffin." 

"Snow doesn't produce a sound. Rather it emits stillness. Cate's stillness is not so different, and like the snow, that still aspect of her, I'm starting to understand, has to do with something frozen."

This gorgeous, engrossing novel suffers a bit from a typical debut problem: plot sprawl. There are enough subplots and messed up characters for a full season of a teen melodrama: two accidental deaths, two suicides, child abuse and neglect, depression, alcoholism, rape and homophobia on top of drug and sex addiction. Juxtaposition dilutes the emotional impact of these tragic issues and makes the story less plausible. The author does an admirable job delving deep into all of them, which resulted in a 400-page tome. Most contemporary YA is closer to 300 pages and is faster paced, especially in the opening chapters. Cross's novel would have been stronger for focusing more exclusively on the central plot without so many diversions. Even so, I stayed up late reading and look forward to more from this promising new author.

Given the edgy content, I would only recommend Before Goodbye to mature teens (16 and up) and to adults. The Maine Writer's panel on YA Today (last week's blog post) predicted more young adult books geared for older teens to accommodate adult readers (who comprise 80% of the market), and this is a fine example of the emerging trend. Cross covers a lot of contentious issues, but her novel includes consequences and learning. If my child were reading this book, I'd want to read along with her/him. Hopefully this dark story will open discussion on risky behavior. The author's acknowledgement ends with links to organizations supporting victims of rape, drug addiction, and domestic violence. Before Goodbye is a bold debut.

Reviewer's Disclosure: my writing crit partner, Charlotte Agell, recommended this novel to me since she knows the author. I bought the ebook and posted my review without compensation. Before Goodbye was released in January and is also available in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook from Skyscape Publishing, a new YA imprint from Amazon.

What is a Feb?

This month my daughter started college in Vermont. The so called "Febs" at Middlebury take a gap term after high school. It's a wonderful program for 100 freshmen who crave an academic break to experience the real world before college.

My daughter was the music counselor at a sleepaway camp before flying abroad. After visiting family in England, she took the high road round Loch Lomond with her Scottish cousin. Then she shoveled "merde" on a French horse farm. In New Zealand she fed alpacas, farmed crops, hiked into Mordor and was stuck 3 hungry days weeding the meditation gardens of a cult. After that, college doesn't sound so scary!

Still it's a big step starting college, especially when 5/6 of the freshmen arrived in September. The first Feb we "met" was a Chewonki Semester School friend, who has the room next to hers by chance! The photo is blurry due to shivering. It dropped below zero F, but these two Febs are winter camping for orientation.

My son, a "reg" junior at Middlebury, had kindly stayed on campus for vacation week to help his sister move into her dorm. Febs often get nice upperclassmen housing, vacant due to junior spring term abroad. My lucky daughter was assigned a single with a window seat, where she'll read philosophy and play guitar while enjoying the mountain view. My son and I left a very happy Feb with her new friends and headed to the mountains to ski ourselves. Middlebury has a cross country (nordic) ski course and a small downhill mountain. In 4 years the Febs ski down that mountain in their gowns to receive their diplomas. As one who is amazed to find myself an empty nester in my 40's, I can already tell those college years will go too fast!

Here's the soundtrack via The Head and the Heart:



A big thank you to the Feb leaders, staff & faculty for your warm welcome & help settling into Midd!

Note: I'm having a new modem installed tomorrow which will hopefully fix my problems connecting to you. Looking forward to catching up soon!

A Winter Song

I hope you're enjoying the grand finale of 2014. It has been a year of strange weather: a cool summer, a summery October and a white Thanksgiving. I self-timed our family photo in our backyard after power returned to roast the turkey. Sadly the snow melted before Christmas, one of our warmest and wettest ever.

We had to drive a couple hours north to find snow at Sugarloaf Mountain. I teach the kids downhill and they coach me in cross-country skiing, our roles reversing. I learn so much from them. It was one degree Fahrenheit yesterday morning so we chose cross-country: treading uphill on skis is warmer than sitting on a chairlift!

On the drive home, we listened to a mix-CD of snow music that my daughter made for me. My favorite song was "Winter Song" by The Head and the Heart. In December we were lucky to see this fabulous indie folk band live in Portland, Maine. I love how my kids introduce me to new music. This one is gorgeous:




Book Watch: My Best Books of 2014 List

What I'm reading now: The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach
A Christmas present from my husband. Sixty pages in, I'm enjoying this 2014 novel by a Maine author. Roorbach captures small town Maine in winter with all its beauty and hints of menace.

Goodreads: They're calling it the "Storm of the Century," so Eric stops at the market for provisions on his way home from work. But when the unkempt and seemingly unstable young woman in front of him in line comes up short on cash, a kind of old-school charity takes hold of his heart-twenty bucks and a ride home is the least he can do, right? Trouble is, Danielle doesn't really have a home. She's squatting in a cabin deep in the woods, no electricity, no heat, nothing but the nearby river to sustain her. She'll need food, water, firewood, and that's just to get her through the storm: there's a whole Maine winter ahead. 

So he gets her set up, departs with relief, climbs to the road, but his car has been towed with his phone inside, and the snow is coming down with historic speed and violence. There's no choice but to return to the cabin. Danielle is terrified, then merely hostile-who is this guy with his big idea that it's she who needs rescuing? As the snow keeps mounting, they're forced to ride out the storm together. For better and for worse. 

Happy New Year!

My daughter's song "Flooded to Black"

Gemma has written a song, "Flooded to Black," which was recorded for a documentary on tar sands oil:

My Photo is the Cover of a New Song

You might remember the photo from my Oxford Sabbatical Highlights post. I never thought this whimsical image would end up on the cover of a CD...my three minutes of fame.

I'm on blog vacation next week. I'll be back online August 28th. Happy Summer!

Winter Waves at Reid State Park

Sick of snow and ice?

Play wave tag at One Mile Beach.

No crowds in February,

Silver sealines are yours alone.

Without snowdrifts,

Only the surf is white.

The waves are green,

Crashing down.

Rocks too slippery to climb

Entrap tide and rustle sand.

One man dares the ocean

To sweep him away.

Music Watch: my neighbor Robert Rand recorded waves at Reid State Park to create relaxation music, Wavepool. Here's his story:

For the Wavepool project, I engaged in recording sorties from the studio in January 2008. The task was to find that very pace and texture, a surf softly breaking, almost like breathing, that I had heard in early January during a kind of daydream when my muse graced me with a visionary sound for a time one day. 

After four months of sometimes repeated visits to multiple beaches from Bar Harbor to Plum Island, it was in May 2008 that I returned once again to Reid State Park. Several times I had visited Reid that Spring, as if I had somehow sensed its potential. Yet each time, I had come away without a useful recording. 

As I walked onto One Mile Beach with my pack and gear, a happy couple nodded and smiled as they returned to their car and drove away, leaving me alone. There were no cars, no people, no happy dogs, no lovers, no gulls or terns, no boats or planes, no blustery winds. It was, for once, an absolute soundscape of slow surf. 

Precisely halfway down One Mile Beach, the surf sang to me, and I recorded. Then time passed back in the studio immersed in composition as I recreated and mixed the simple, deep ensemble my muse had delivered four months earlier.

You can listen to a clip of Wavepool in the upper left corner of Robert Rand's website.
Note: I did not receive any free products or compensation. 

Blog Watch: Cynthia@catching days went beach walking too.  Lakeviewer@sixtyfivewhatnow lives on the beach as does Delwyn@a hazy moon.

The Dartmouth Arms Book Club (North London)

A book club at a pub? Only in North London! I was in Kentish Town last month doing research for my novel, NOT CRICKET (A MATCH FOR EVE). Two of my (fictional) characters grew up in this neighborhood. I had to visit the local boozer. I was impressed to find them reading Man Booker Prize literary fiction.

Look inside the Dartmouth Arms. Can you imagine curling up on that leather armchair before the fire with a pint of Adnams in one hand and a novel in the other? Bliss. I could hear my characters talking to me.

How did I find this gem? My husband once lived in this neighborhood. He rented the garden flat in the house with the purple door. Years ago we had gone back to visit, and the memory stayed with me. When I pictured my imaginary families living side-by-side in North London, this was the image that came to mind.

The Kentish Delight Wine Bar (above) looks new, but most of the neighborhood hadn’t changed much in two decades. This is not a posh part of London, but it’s affordable. The high street features row shops selling: greasy kebabs, fish and chips, discount electronics, Middle Eastern carpets, polyester clothing, flimsy furniture etc. North London hosts an ethnic mix and plenty of bohemian intellectuals and artists, like my characters.

The Owl Bookshop has been on the Kentish Town Road since the 1970s. This well-stocked independent bookshop is worth a trip on its own. Maybe one of my characters could own it. I'm browsing.

The low-rise neighborhood has a timeless, gritty quality to it. This isn’t touristy London.

You can imagine having a relationship with the butcher (if you weren’t a Vegan) instead of grabbing cellophaned packages. One change was a butcher advertising “organic” meat and fish. Probably the same stuff, just updated marketing.

For fun you’d go hear the latest indie rock live. Back in the 1980s the hmv forum was the Town and Country. My husband saw Stiff Little Fingers play there.

There has been only a touch of yuppification.

I have to admit to enjoying this new addition: Satuma Japanese Restaurant.

It was a trip down memory lane for my husband. He was a wonderful guide. In order to know characters, I walk the streets of their childhood. I won’t include the entire back story, but I want to understand it.

Crystal Spring Farmers' Market

This farmers’ market sunflower is my first photo with my new Nikon D80 SLR camera. The rest of the shots were taken with my small point-and-shoot Canon Elph SD800, which was a better fit for a bike ride to a local farm. Our panniers were overflowing on the way home with vegetables, scallops, turkey, bread, eggs, goat cheese, flowers and . . . hey, who ate all the brownies?

During the summer and fall, Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick hosts the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings. It’s a mile and a half outside of town with just one steep hill. I call it family fun, but I think my kids only peddle along for the fresh baked brownies and blueberry bars. A return to blue skies called us to venture out after a boring week of unpacking boxes from our sabbatical in England.

The Brunswick Topsham Land Trust preserves the antebellum farm, all 322 acres of it. The Kroeck family farms organic vegetables and sheep using sustainable methods. The 1860’s farmhouse was recently renovated by volunteers, including my friend Mark Wild. Mark also did a lovely job remodeling our house. He’s great with period details.


Brunswick has many 1920’s homes and some that are older. There has also been a fair bit of suburban development. A few years ago Brunswick passed a Smart Growth Ordinance that protects open spaces while encouraging development in the town growth areas. I spent Election Day gathering signatures at the voting polls and also helped organize support for it.

Brunswick’s protection of rural and wild spaces is part of what makes this town so special. Suburban sprawl is changing the face of Maine like much of America. Brunswick still holds onto its classic New England charm even beneath the surface.

One of my favorite parts of Crystal Spring Farm is the maple-lined drive. The farmers request that visitors stick to the miles of public trails and not enter the farm. There are live electric fences and other hazards. Because it’s a working farm, dogs aren’t allowed except at the market. That’s a big difference from England where dogs are welcome almost everywhere. Dogs, however, can be shot if they trouble the sheep in England.

Crystal Spring farmers’ markets is surprisingly diverse. You can get Chinese food as well as fresh seafood.













Farmers set up tents to sell their produce. The organic competition is fierce. Buckwheat Blossom Farm won’t even use tractors. Go horse power!

The produce varies in presentation too.
Some farmers like things neat and tidy:

Others allow the vegetables to look recently uprooted.
Everything is so fresh.

In past years a trebuchet was reconstructed from medieval diagrams to launch leftover pumpkins at targets for a hunger relief fund-raiser. I set a scene there in my novel S.A.D.. Coming home has brought my words back to life. Even when I’m not writing, I feel like I’m walking through the pages. My plot and characters are fictional, but the story is set in a real place that I know well. It would be hard to improve upon Brunswick and Harpswell.

Bath Municipal Band photo by Angel Franco, NYT

On Tuesdays and Fridays the farmers’ market is at the Brunswick town green, called the mall. The green is the thumping heart of a small town. A brass band that plays in the village greens of Brunswick and Bath was featured in Monday’s New York Times. You can click hear (that’s a pun not a typo!) for the music. Dan Berry’s column focuses on “obscure and well-known corners of the U.S.” Guess I’m not in NYC or Oxford anymore!

How about a feature on obscure but skilled chefs? Here’s what my husband, Henry, crafted on Saturday night from farmers’ market ingredients. Even the kids liked it.

HENRY'S CILANTRO AND LIME SCALLOPS RECIPE:

1 lb fresh scallops
1 red pepper chopped

Marinade:
Juice of 1 lime
3-4 tbs soy sauce
1-2 tbs mirin (sweet rice vinegar)
1 tsp grated ginger
Handful of chopped cilantro (coriander)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper

Marinate for about an hour, then drain
Heat oil and a few drops of sesame oil in a wok or heavy skillet
Stir-fry, adding fresh chopped red pepper for about 3-4 minutes max.
You can serve over noodles with dipping sauce (below)

Noodles in Dipping Sauce

1 pkt noodles: soba, udon or capellini or whatever

Sauce:
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tbs brown sugar
Optional: About 1 tbs grated daikon or radish

Garnishes (All optional)
Grated ginger
Scallions, cut finely on the diagonal
Nori (dried sushi seaweed) cut finely into strips (use scissors)
Shiso leaves, cut fine

Heat sauce ingredients (except daikon) together slowly till simmering.
Cook noodles and put in bowls
Add the daikon to the sauce and ladle some over the noodles
Add garnishes

Enjoy!

Merton College Stories

Don’t you just love gargoyles? Actually this Merton one must be a “grotesque” as it doesn’t spit water. These little monsters crawl over many an Oxbridge façade, favoring high perches, drain spouts, hidden nooks and John Kelly’s Voxford blog. I’m so honored to be featured as Kelly’s gargoyle of the week. Look up when exploring the old colleges if you feel googlie eyes.

Merton is “the oldest college” at Oxford, a title it shares with two others: Balliol and Univ. They were all established between 1249-1264. The dispute centers around which started teaching first. Merton’s claim of antiquity rests upon being the first college in England to receive a royal charter. Its oldest quad has buildings without chimneys because the technology hadn’t made it to England from the Continent. College treasures are still stored in the stone buildings to protect them from fire.

Merton also houses the oldest continuously functioning English library (built 1278 -1378) in the world. Merton cleverly built up its library by requiring academics to bring and bestow their personal book collections to the college. They also had three ancient astrolabes and a couple of multi-locked chests that used to house books before the advent of bookcases.

Photo of Merton Library from Wikipedia

I wish I could have taken photos of the Merton Library myself. It was like walking into a wooden crypt or a sacred mausoleum of literary antiquity. The walls and stalls were oak paneled and the ceiling open to the roof beams like an attic. The tiny stained glass windows let in little light.

The best lit stalls housed the most learned texts in the hierarchy of knowledge: theology and philosophy, followed by law and medicine. The lower humanities were in the least favorable northern corners. The progression of subjects lead to enlightenment as in those days colleges were formed first and foremost as religious institutions.

In the darkest recesses the first year students of past centuries might be reading lowly literature. And what literature! There’s one of the first printed versions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and it’s in the best shape of the 8 existing copies. Priceless! Merton also has a second volume of Shakespeare. I had to take out a tissue to avoid drooling over all the leather-bound, chained books.

Perhaps I should have been trembling with fear. The Merton Library is haunted! John Duns Scotus supposedly walks shin deep, wading through the new raised floor. Students sneak into the library to see him at night. I heard this tale and others from our student guide, Krishna Omkar.

Merton is as rich in stories as it is in history. J.R.R. Tolkien had an office in Fellows Quad. He met with his buddy C.S. Lewis in the Merton gardens which are lovely on a warm spring day. They sat around a stone table, that was to feature in the Narnia series, and discussed their writing when they weren’t meeting at the Eagle and Child pub.

This is The Stone Table? It wasn’t large enough to kill a cat let alone a mighty lion, Aslan. As for the name Aslan, my son told me that it is Islamic. He has a friend from Iran who is teased mercilessly for that name at their English boys school. Kids can be so cruel, but I like that there is more to the Narnia books beyond a Christian allegory. It feels like a treasure hunt living in Oxford and uncovering the inspiration for classic literature.

Merton also has tales from more recent times. On the day that the clocks fall back an hour, old Mertonians gather in Fellows Quad by the sundial. At 1:57 am they drink a toast. Linking arms, they walk backwards drinking port for an hour! Don’t mock it. This ritual is the only hope we have of maintaining the space-time continuum. Needless to say, it is a modern practice dating back to the 1970’s. Yes, I know that for some of you that is ancient history. My daughter’s eleven year old friend referred to the Bee Gees as “this really old band from long ago.” She then added, “They were guys but sounded just like girls.”

Back when Oxford students were still dancing to those “oldies,” my husband was at Oriel. The Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan was at Merton. Naruhito was invited to a formal ball and was provided a suitable date but didn’t know how to boogie. Henry came to the rescue and taught the crown prince how to disco dance. Not to the Bee Gees, that would be cruel and unusual punishment, but to Soft Cell. An international crisis was thus narrowly averted.

Despite the demonic gargoyles, Merton is a spiritual place with a huge 13th century chapel that was originally built as a parish church. It supposedly has the second best acoustics in all of Europe. A microphone is never necessary. The screen to the chapel was Sir Christopher Wren’s first commission.

At the end of our Oxford Newcomers' Club tour, we had tea in the grand hall, quite typical of the old colleges. On the way home down the cobblestone road, I had a good laugh. This is where you can find the Philosophy Department at Oxford:

For those of you hungering for more Oxford tales from my husband, next week Henry will be guest blogging about Eight’s Week – an Oxford rowing race. He’s out there on the Thames/Isis today with an old Oriel buddy. They’ll probably do some “research” down the boozer too. Time to push off.

Portland Nightlife

“Oh-my-God-oh-my-God, it’s Professor Kitch!” shrieked a Bowdoin blond. When Aaron Kitch isn’t teaching Renaissance literature at Bowdoin College, he plays keyboard in the 80’s revival band, Racer-X.

The lead singer and guitarist, Vineet Shende , teaches music at Bowdoin. Vin had just come back from a semester sabbatical in India, studying sitar and letting his hair grow as long, black and curly as mine. For their gig at Ri~Ra in Portland, Vin clipped his hair short and donned a wig. Stretch pants and leopard print replaced his trademark jeans and leather jacket. Could this be my soft-spoken friend?


If Henry and I hadn’t gotten there early to see Racer-X set up, I doubt I would have recognized our mates. It wasn’t only their clothing that had changed. With the amps ramped up, the lights flashing and 20-year-old girls dancing and screaming, these professors were rocking.


Portland is the biggest city in Maine, a half an hour south of Brunswick. By day it’s a brick and cobblestone boutique haven of Old World charm, but by night the over-booked restaurants and bar crowds spill onto sidewalks as does the music of live bands.


The city doesn’t come alive until late, so we killed time at Books Etc. (open until 9pm Thursday-Saturday and every night during the summer.) I skimmed the new releases, pleased to see most were in my genre of women’s fiction. In the used book section I discovered a hardcover copy of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, the best novel I’ve read in the past year. I read about two books a month, mostly in my genre and in literary fiction. I’ve found the best writing teacher to be a well-written novel.


The stalking tiger on the cover of The Hungry Tide is as beautiful as the fairytale inside. It’s a contemporary story set in eastern India where deified tigers roam free and viciously wild in tidal country. The tough Indian-American heroine has come in search of the elusive river dolphin and inadvertently her ancestry. She hires an illiterate fisherman whose knowledge runs deeper than the hidden pools. It’s a world beyond intellect, ruled instead by dreams, spirits and unpredictable storms. The prose is as captivating as the story that compels the reader to read, return and read again like a favorite song.

I’ve always enjoyed books written by Indian authors. The setting is exotic but the English fluent. There is respect for family, nature and spirituality both rigidly confined and enhanced by culture. Two other favorite novels are Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy and Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things. I’ve never read a better collection of stories than Indian-American Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpretation of Maladies.

Lahiri’s novel The Namesake has just been released as a finely acted film. Vin says it’s the story of his life: “Did she call up all the people I know?” It’s a modern tale of Bengali immigrants whose son, Gogol, grows up to date a blond. Gogol is torn between his heritage and mainstream culture, struggling to find his footing in a world that sees him as a foreigner, despite being a native born American.

The Namesake rambles like many first novels, but it speaks with heartfelt honesty. You can almost forgive the hopeless plot that is more of an overstretched story than a novel. As a New York Jew living in small-town Maine, I’m drawn to tales of displacement and discovery.