Far From the Tree by Robin Benway

Happy New Year! It's the Year of the Dog in Japan. Mine likes to join me on my cross country skis (photo by my son). With sub zero temperatures and another blizzard (9-12 inches with 45 mph gusts) due tomorrow, this is good reading weather.

While warming up by the fire, I enjoyed Far From the Tree by Robin Benway, which won the National Book Award in 2017. This well-crafted young adult novel shows the racial and gender based inequities of fostering and adoption in the USA, but it still manages to be a feel-good book full of hope.

After giving up her baby for adoption, sixteen-year-old Grace decides to look for her own birth mother and discovers that she has two half siblings. Wealthy Maya was also adopted as a baby into a loving but troubled family. Their half Mexican brother, Joaquin, had a harder time than his white sisters and bounced around foster homes for years. Together they redefine and expand the meaning of family. I loved the close bonds that formed among the siblings.

This simile was my favorite: "...the ability to sit quietly side by side, content in the knowledge that no matter what happened to your parents, or your girlfriend, that your siblings will be there, like a bookend that keeps you upright when you feel like toppling over." By comparison, the family tree metaphor of the title was less original and a bit overworked.

Of the three perspectives, Joaquin's was the most compelling. I probably would have prefered a book centered on him, but I often have that issue with multiple point-of-view books. I would still recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys heartwarming family stories with diverse characters. You should also check out my list of Best Contemporary YA of 2017. Thanks, Barrie, for recommending this novel to me and for hosting the book review club.

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@Barrie Summy

My resolution for 2017 was to write the first draft of the young adult novel I researched in Japan. The manuscript is going to two crit partners later this week, and there will be many more drafts and beta/sensitivity readers (including my Japanese American niece) before I give the manuscript to my agent, which is my writing resolution for 2018. Also, I'd like to learn more Japanese, and I will remain politically active since Maine is a swing state. What are your resolutions?

A Book Lover's Birthday Gift: waging battle in verse

Birthday celebration with my brother, my mother, my father, and me - photo by my sister-in-law Sumie Nobunaga Lamport

My dad must have been my age now when I called him
"an old man." Late on a ski day, he'd taken the intermediate slope rather than following me down an icy double-black diamond with hazard signs.

My dad retaliated by quoting poetry at me,

"I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?"

My groaning did not stop his recitation.
My dad - and T.S. Eliot - had the last word.

Or so he thought.

Jump ahead in time. I was now the mother... 

...of a teenager who leaves me in her snowy wake. 

Her grandpa had a big birthday. What should we give him?

My dad started the tradition of giving stupid gifts. Before I moved to Oxford, England for a one-year sabbatical, he gave me a mug featuring the six wives of King Henry VIII. When hot tea was poured, their heads vanished.

For my paternal jester, I considered a poetry collection written in invisible ink, but a beautiful edition of T.S. Eliot's poetry would be more classy.


In Portland, Maine I found an antiquarian bookstore, Carlson & Turner. Although T.S. Eliot died years before my birth, 1965 was not quite ancient enough for a leather-bound volume. The bookseller offered to rebind a 1970s edition, which I found at Yes Books. He rolled out reams of dyed leather and sheets of marbled paper. He'd spent decades mastering the classic art of bookbindery. His gorgeous samples with gold lettering were out of another century. The supple leather was soothing in hand.

This was the gift for my dad: "Time for you and time for me."

 A Love Song from J. Alfred Prufrock and me

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 Dog Walk on Skis

Sunday morning I awoke delighted to find three inches of fresh snow.

We have had so much snow this season, I can practically ski right off the back deck. My cross-country skis are extra wide for trail breaking. I'm usually the first one out after storms. 

Skiing or snowshoeing is the only way to walk the dog these days. On foot, people sink to their knees and dogs sink to their bellies, but I've trained Scout to follow in my tracks. 

Our backyard has become Narnia. I never tire of the magic.

Our wooded trail takes us to Bowdoin College's playing fields.
On the mornings I don't ski, I swim laps in the indoor pool. 

The cross-country trail encircles the fields. Unleashed dogs are welcome as long as you clean up.
If you are walking or snowshoeing, please avoid stepping in the ski tracks as that ruins them. 

Feeling bold, I followed the steep snowshoe trail into the ravine and nearly got stuck.

Trudging uphill was hard work on skis, but it was worth it to speed downhill.

At the base of the hill is the first pond.

Under the bridge, the stream was flowing metallic black, reflecting the sun.

The Town Commons trail lead us back into the woods...

...to the second pond, where I sometimes ice skate.

It was time to turn around and to head back home. Scout was excited to follow our scent.

I tricked her by choosing a different trail that skirts the first pond and a meandering stream. 

We had only been gone an hour or so. Is this our home or a snow drift?

My fabulous husband had shoveled the snow and had made crepes for brunch.
Later we read by the fire and watched Downton Abbey with our daughter.
What a perfect weekend!

More snow is falling this morning....

Blog Watch: this post is part of the Winter Walk-Off, 2015 hosted @A Tidewater Gardener. 

Is it cold enough to duct tape your face?

My taped daughter and friends at Nordic States in Presque Isle, Maine 

We have a new standard for cold this year. At the Maine high school State Championship for Nordic Skiing (ie cross country classic and skate) the high temperature was minus two degrees Fahrenheit (-19C) with twenty mph winds. My daughter's coach had the team tape their faces to avoid frostbite. Some racers use duct tape, but Kinesio tape is softer on the skin. Duct tape is also useful for taping hand-warmers to your body under racing spandex. The girls came second for their division, class c. None of them got frostbite.

My daughter racing on a warmer day

The best way to beat the cold at home is a woodburning stove. Our first house in Maine had one placed at the bottom of the stairway in the open plan living space. We had a newborn (the future Nordic Ski captain) and a rambunctious three-year-old (now a Physics major), who always touched before asking. Since there was a nice fireplace in another room, we considered removing the woodstove but decided to wait a year. Half of the homes we'd seen had those clunky woodstoves. There might be a reason.

Our first January in Maine there was an epic icestorm. We lost power for a week. Many of our neighbors lost power for longer. That "dangerous" woodstove kept our small house in the 60's and the pipes from freezing. An open fireplace is far less efficient at heating a house since most of the hot air goes up the chimney. A woostove radiates heat, and the top can be used to cook tins of soup and to boil water for tea or even a bath. My professor husband became very proficient at splitting logs.

A woodstove is greener than you might think. The trees we burn, some from our yard, are replanted every year. A growing tree sucks up more CO2 than is released by burning that tree. Maine is the most densely forested state in the continental USA, and one of the least populated, so burning wood works for us. As the saying goes, a woodstove warms you three times: stacking logs, splitting logs and burning them.

Reading Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein with Scout, photo by my husband. Book review coming in March.

When we moved into our current house, the first thing we bought was a woodstove to supplement our natural gas furnace. Our Jotul keeps our library cozy on the coldest nights and has been useful during other power failures. We've never had it as bad as that first winter, but this year, with all the blizzards, record snowfall (another six to ten inches due tonight), and frigid temperatures (three degrees Fahrenheit), I feel prepared. If I need to go outside for logs, I can always tape my face!

Recommended reading: The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach (fiction)
For more novel uses for duct tape, woodstoves recipes, and other winter survival tips.

Winter Jigsaw

Sometimes when I'm revising a manuscript, I hit a wall of snow. 

Old words seem frozen solid, unmoving and unmovable. 

My stream of thought is blocked. The structure falls.

But if I look carefully, I find a small opening,

And finally a clear path. I must cut fresh tracks in what has fallen, but if I keep going...

I discover an unexpected vista,

Where all the fragmented pieces fit into a story. 

No Surrender Soldier by Christine Kohler & Blizzard Photos

A Japanese soldier hiding on a tropical island for 18 years after Word War II ended? That sounds like pure fiction, but No Surrender Soldier was inspired by a true story. American author Christine Kohler has lived in both Japan and Guam. Her firsthand knowledge brings an historical incident to life with fictional characters. This engaging young adult novel would make a marvelous supplement to the history classroom, as it touches on both World War II and the Vietnam War.

No Surrender Soldier is set in 1972 on the Island of Guam (a US territory.) Fifteen-year-old Kiko chases a baseball into the jungle and finds a Japanese soldier hiding in a cave. His family history makes the encounter all the more horrific: during World War II, a Japanese soldier raped his mother, and now Kiko's brother is missing in action in Vietnam. Kiko is torn between his desire for revenge and his empathy for the old soldier. He's a believably impulsive teenager who hungers to be a man. This is a coming of age story with solid values.

What I loved best about No Surrender Soldier was how it treated the Japanese and Guam cultures with even-handed respect while acknowledging the atrocities of war. Kiko is native to Guam but his best friend is Japanese. Tourists from Japan help his family's business. The story is told in alternating chapters so that we can see inside the Japanese soldier's head and empathize with his harrowing struggle for survival. Seto's flashbacks to his boyhood (including baseball) and his shame over disappointing the emperor make him a sympathetic but scary character.

The writing was accessible with occasional poetic interludes in Seto's voice:

Not raining leaves, nor whistling wind, not gonging bamboo, nor droning airplanes - especially not the bombers - could drown out the sound of a thousand soldiers marching. Marching. Marching.

This fast-paced novel would appeal especially to boys aged eleven to fourteen. Kiko is a young, boyish fifteen. There are lots of gross-out survival details like eating rats, although talking to a girl is even scarier. I had a hard time reading the detailed description of butchering the family pig, but Kiko suffers even more because he loves his pet. The gory violence of that scene was not gratuitous since it foreshadows what may come later. Although the story has plenty of educational value and religious moments, it never sounded didactic or preachy. No Surrender Soldier was designed to be read under the covers with a flashlight.

Reviewer's Disclosure: I bought this 2014 ebook myself. It's also available in hardcover from Merit Press, a new publisher of young adult fiction. I have a personal interest in Japan. My husband teaches Japanese Politics at Bowdoin College and my sister-in-law is Japanese.

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@Barrie Summy

Photos from the Blizzards of 2015

We've had three major storms (four snow days) in the past week, dumping about three feet of snow.

 That's not counting the drifts due to high winds. I have to "walk" Scout on skis. She follows in my tracks.

 My daughter has been a big help with the shoveling...Scout less so.

In my seventeen years in coastal Maine, I've never seen so much snow. Nothing melts in single digit temps.

The skiing has been great so I'm not complaining.
More is due tonight!

Storm reading: The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach

perfect cover!

With a blizzard pounding the northeast, now is the time for a good book by the fire. The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach captures the beauty and the menace of a Maine winter. The title comes from a Henry David Thoreau quotation: "There is no remedy for love but to love more." This romantic thriller has literary panache.

Roorbach's novel opens as the storm of the century approaches Maine. Eric is shopping for a gourmet meal to win back his estranged wife. The line is held up by a smelly misfit who doesn't have enough money to cover her basic needs. Eric puts down a twenty and offers Danielle a ride home.

By the time Eric has hauled water from the icy river and split logs for Danielle, his car has been towed away with his cell phone inside. The snow is coming down hard. He's now stuck in a summer cabin off the grid with a deranged woman who doesn't want him or his pity.

I enjoyed the characters despite their sizable flaws: macho Eric was smugly judgemental but generous and crass Danielle was mentally unstable but surprisingly smart.

"You grin at me, even when I'm, like, clearly f***ing desolate. And when I'm...? You grin. You're trying to look harmless but you're hiding this fat aggression. It's a little sick. You're grinning now, mister. It's like looking at double exposure - you want to show how friendly and nonthreatening you are, but at the same time you look like you're about to bite me."

The blizzard was a character in itself, sliding the cabin off its foundations as Eric and Danielle lose their grip on all that had anchored them to their disappointing lives. The only character who wasn't convincing was Eric's estranged wife. She seemed too ordinary compared to Danielle's soldier husband, who added another layer or menace, lurking in the backstory. The ending had a good plot twist.

Remedy for Love is a psychological thriller, a literary romance and a social commentary on America. In backstory, the narrative covers the travails of small town law and the horrors of the war in Iraq. In front story, life is condensed into the claustrophobic confines of a log cabin. Although the writing was often beautifully evocative, some descriptions were too raunchy for my taste. I liked the novel best as a survival story and as a portrait of Maine. Roorbach clearly knows his stuff. After reading this book, I feel better prepared for the storm. If I'm not online, I may be tending our woodstove or plotting our escape.

Reviewer's Disclosure: I've posted early (while I have power) to synch with the blizzard, but this review will be part of Barrie Summy's blogger book review club (link below) on February 4th. I took the photos on Sunday while skiing at the old Brunswick Naval Air Station with my daughter. This 2014 book was a Christmas gift from my husband, purchased at Longfellow Books in Portland. I'm sorry to report that Stuart Gerson, one of the bookstore's founders/owners, died last week.

"The sun out there was warm, but the breeze, damn, the breeze was sharp like broken glass."

-Bill Roorbach

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