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!

Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales

Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales could be a Millennial epilogue to Ibsen's A Doll's House. As much as I empathized with Nora's domestic frustrations and her desire for personal fulfillment, I always wondered how her departure affected her children. In a nod to Ibsen's 1879 play, the protagonist daughter of Sales's young adult novel had a line of dolls created in her image. Arden fears that "the most exciting moment in her life was already past."

In Tonight the Streets Are Ours, a devoted stay-at-home mom has left her family without warning or explanation to move to New York City from the Maryland suburbs. Her workaholic husband retreats to his office and into fantasy football, leaving the housekeeping to their seventeen-year-old daughter. Arden mothers her little brother, supports her egocentric boyfriend and takes the blame when her best friend stashes weed in her locker. "Recklessly loyal" Arden could have starred in an Ibsen play herself, but she prefers stage crew and life out of the spotlight.

As an escape from her problems, Arden becomes obsessed with a blog, Tonight the Streets Are Ours. The arts school blogger lives big in New York City; Peter shares her frustrations with loved ones and a hope for an ideal romance. The proverbial gun is placed center stage and the reader waits for Arden to pull the trigger. However, what happens when Arden drives off to New York City defies expectations.

The cast features diverse characters with realistic flaws who make mistakes. My only criticism would be that the pace was a bit slow in the first half, but it accelerates on the road trip with reckless glee. This edgy book explores the meaning of love with both humor and philosophical depth. Risky behavior has life altering consequences. Tonight the Streets Are Ours is delightfully whimsical, emotionally poignant and true to Millennial teens.

The sassy narrative voice was spot on:

"They both watched as Dillon Rammstein lit up a joint and Matt Washington shouted at him to 'Take that shit outside, man.' Dillon shoved past the girls' couch to go onto the patio. It was reassuring to know that Matt was such a conscientious host." 

"Nobody seemed particularly interested in playing charades, or any game that didn't involve killing computer generated prostitutes."

From Peter's blog:

"I do not understand Vitaminwater, by the way. Drink some water. Eat some vitamins. Are you so busy that you need those two tasks combined into one? I mean, I know New Yorkers have a lot going on, but chill the hell out."

Bloggers will be interested in the gap between the real world and the life portrayed online. An unreliable blogger makes for good satire of social media and of the New York publishing world. The author is also an editor of young adult fiction. Sales clearly knows her Ibsen and the Brooklyn club scene. Could there be a better juxtaposition?

I discovered the author's previous novel, This Song Will Save Your Life, while browsing in Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine. After two brilliantly original books with awesome soundtracks, Leila Sales has joined my favorite author list. Her young adult novels would appeal to fans of Jennifer E. Smith's and of Stephanie Perkins's YA romances. However, Tonight the Streets Are Ours is more than a teen romance; it's also a cautionary tale for high achieving girls and their over-extended super moms.

Reviewer's Disclosure: I requested a free digital galley from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Tonight will be released in hardcover and in ebook on September 15th, 2015.

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@Barrie Summy

England in Springtime

Hello, I'm back! We've been in England visiting my in-laws, who live on this gorgeous stretch of the
Thames River.  This is the village where my husband grew up.

For provisions we headed to Wallingford (photo above), which hasn't changed much since medieval times. We easily found wellies (rubber boots) for my daughter but not a replacement headset for her iPod. I highly recommend the antique arcade and the Wallingford Bookshop. Agatha Christie lived outside this charming town. My mother-in-law, an occupational therapist, used to help care for her.

My daughter was amused to find a supermarket aisle devoted to tea and snapped this photo. I tasted a Cornish cheese called yarg, wrapped in nettles. I have a special interest in all thing Cornish since the young adult novel I'm revising is set in Cornwall.

For "research" my husband and I had to visit the Catherine Wheel, a favorite pub in Goring-on-Thames.

Back in the day, food was cooked directly over the fire.

The hidden men's room.

Amos sings along to opera and pop.

When we tired of the singing dog, we took the train to London. After watching a superb performance of 
Gorky's Children of the Sun at the National Theatre, we admired the view from the Millenium Bridge.

The weather was damp and chilly,
but the sun came out for
my husband's birthday party.

The best part of our visit was
catching up with family
and old friends.
I met Sherry and Safia
during my junior year abroad in London.

If you live in the UK or Japan,
check out Safia's fair trade clothing company:
People Tree.
She's wearing one of her dresses
in hand woven fabric.

England, I already miss you.  Photo by my daughter.

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.

War Horse Review: book, play and movie soon

Horse in Port Meadow, England

I usually prefer the original book to the adaption, but War Horse by Michael Morpurgo improved on stage. The novel follows a horse and his boy from a farm in Devon, England to the battlefields of World War I France. In reality, the cavalry was pitted against machine guns, barbed wire, trenches and tanks. Over 15 million people and 8 million horses died. War Horse does not glorify war but remembers the bravery and sacrifices of those who served, both human and equine.

Although the book was very good, it was absurd to have a horse narrate a story of war brutality in which many sympathetic characters suffer and die.  Animal narrators belong in innocent books for young children.  Furthermore, the voice wasn’t believably equine, and there was no explanation for how a farm horse could understand three languages. We also lose track of the boy’s story when they part. An omniscient third person narrator would have worked better. Still, what a great story!

Oddly enough, moving the story to the stage with horse puppets created more realism. The puppets didn’t speak, and they acted like true horses: snorting, galloping and even breathing. It was hard to see them abused because you believed they were alive. There was nothing childish or cutesy about these puppets, and the war scenes were horrific and loud. In fact, I would not recommend this play to families with young children or sensitive teenagers because it was terrifyingly real.

War Horse is a must see for a mature audience. Not only were the puppetry, acting and singing fabulous, the staging was gorgeously artistic. A cloud-like backdrop became an animated sketchbook. As the actor rode the puppet horse, an ink drawing of them galloped across the rolling fields. Later the screen projected battle scenes as the stage spun or broke into trenches. The play was true to the spirit of the book, but the secondary characters and the plot were condensed and modified for more poignancy and greater realism.


War Horse at Lincoln Center, NYC

War Horse is currently playing in London and in New York City. It won 5 Tonys, including best play in 2011 and extended its run. In 2012 War Horse is due to open in Toronto and will simultaneously tour American cities. My parents (thank you!) took my teenaged children and me to the New York production over Thanksgiving. I purchased the ebook and read it before seeing the play. Thank you, Bee, for the recommendation.


Steven Spielberg’s film adaption of War Horse will open on Christmas Day, 2011.

Update Movie Review: my husband (who's family comes from Devon) and I were disappointed by the film version of War Horse. The movie was overly sentimental with too many characters, and the film looked obviously photoshopped (ie a tropical red sunset in Devon). The best part was the first half set in England, even if the actors didn't get the Devonian accents right. The later war scenes felt contrived, and the farm in France was absurdly bucolic. Go see the play (best) or read the book instead.

Theater Watch: on a lighter note, we also saw and loved Noel Coward’s Private Lives on Broadway. Paul Gross and Kim Cattrall were superb.

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.

Comic Stage Notes

The Book of Mormon is actually worth the hype. From the creators of South Park, this new Broadway musical guarantees to offend everyone. Mormonism joins the long list of religions ridiculed on South Park, but the Mormons themselves are portrayed sympathetically as big-hearted characters of faith. They are totally unprepared for the grizzly realities of a warlord-dominated village in Uganda. The troubles of Africa, from AIDS to dysentery and female circumcision, are the subject of catchy musical numbers.

Somehow The Book of Mormon manages to be both hilarious and culturally sensitive. The irreverent humor reminded me of Monty Python but American. My parents enjoyed it as much as my teenaged children. The whole audience was roaring with laughter throughout the entire production. Thank you, Marika, for telling me to get tickets before it opened as they are now very hard to get.

Our best pre-theater meal was at Sushi of Gari on 46th St. We strongly recommend the Omakase, chef's choice sushi tasting menu. What the small, narrow restaurant lacks in atmosphere it makes up for in extraordinary food served quickly. There are also cooked non-fish dishes for the less adventurous, but even my 16-year-old son loved this sushi. It was some of the best sushi we've had, even including Japan.


Another Broadway comedy well worth seeing is The Importance of Being Earnest. Set in late Victorian England, this is a timeless satire of the upper classes and social conventions. Brian Bedford both directs and plays the role of Lady Bracknell. Bedford did such an excellent job that my parents didn’t realize that he was a man. The acting overall was superb, especially David Furr as Jack/Earnest. The real star, however, was the playwright, Oscar Wilde. There were so many witty and memorable lines such as:

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”

“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”

It was especially good for my daughter to observe a man playing a woman because she is playing the romantic male lead in a Shakespeare play. It’s quite a challenge for a 13-year-old girl to become an Italian man. In NYC we scanned the sidewalks for men to imitate.

Back in Maine, one of her classmates tutored my daughter and her stage twin on how to walk like a guy. Another trick was getting boy boots for my graceful dancer. She now clunks around in her Doc Martens. There were also lessons in stage fighting, slapstick and fencing. I was prepared for my daughter to grow into a woman but not to see her become a macho man. Parenting has so many surprises!

For you fans of satire, David Furr (Earnest/Jack) and Santino Fontana (Algeron) perform in character "Jersey Shore Gone Wilde" in the YouTube clip below. Warning: adult language, this is the actual transcript of "Jersey Shore" from Oscar Wilde's perspective.

Here's the link @Playbill to see parts 2-5 of Jersey Shore Gone Wilde.

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

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.