Fall Foliage Reflections & Refractions

The leaves were so perfect

On my morning dog walk,

I returned with my watercolors

Minus the wet dog.

Double review: Fangirl and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell is a new addition to my favorite authors list. Her novels are hard to categorize. St. Martin's Giffin is a Macmillan imprint geared to adults, but you'll probably find Fangirl and Eleanor & Park shelved in the young adult section at the bookstore. Adults should crossover and read them too.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (September 2013) is one of the best books I've read this year. Abandoned by their mother at age eight, Cath and Wren became obsessed with Simon Snow fantasy books. By age eighteen, Cath is the most popular Simon Snow fan fiction writer online, with fans of her own. At college Wren wants to be a normal coed and distances herself from her identical twin. Cath holes up in her dorm room with power bars and escapes into Simon Snow's fantasy world. Her writing teacher and new friends struggle to pull Cath into the real world.

Don't let the fan fiction part make you miss out on a great book. I've always avoided fan fiction because it sounded like quasi-plagiarism, which is an attitude shared by the writing teacher in Fangirl. With due respect to J.K. Rowling's copyright, Rowell created a Simon Snow series inspired by Harry Potter. Dazzling excerpts from the Snow books and from the twins' fan fiction appear throughout the novel, echoing real world themes. Cath's fan fiction is distinct in style and spin: the two boy wizards are secretly in love with each other. The gay-romance conceit verges on satire without losing heart. Both fans and foes of fan fiction will find much to love in Fangirl.

Fangirl is also a coming of age story with a sweet misfit romance. College boys are mostly interested in casual hook ups or flirting for help with homework. It's no wonder that Cath retreats to a fantasy world, but the real world characters prove to be more compelling. Toward the end, I forced myself to read more slowly because I knew I'd miss the characters after the final page. Book bloggers of all ages are raving about and rereading Fangirl. Rowell taps into something universal in the terrifying but exhilarating experience of freshman year at college.

I love Rowell's fresh writing style:

Setting:  

"Cath lived in a dorm, like a young adult - like someone who was still on adulthood probation." 

Character: 

"He made everything look so easy...Even standing. You didn't realize how much work everyone else put into holding themselves until you saw Levi leaning against the wall....He made standing look like vertical lying down." 

On writing fiction other than fan fiction: 

"When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or...falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall."

The book within a book: 

"'You don't do magic,' she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. 'You are magic.'" - Gemma T. Leslie's Simon Snow

Eleanor & Park (February 2013) has been a big crossover hit with teens and adults. The main characters are in high school, but the narrative is set in the 1980s. The pop culture references would appeal to nostalgic middle aged readers. It's a sweet misfit romance between an obese girl and a glam rock boy. This engaging book sets the cruelty of bullying against the power of love.

Adult readers will appreciate that the parents in Eleanor & Park are well developed characters with subplots of their own. Her abusive step father and battered mom undercut Eleanor's self confidence while Park struggles to please his macho GI joe dad. My one gripe was that Park's mom wasn't Korean beyond her thick accent. She cooked Midwestern food, decorated her house in suburban style and avoided talking about her childhood in Korea (she met her American husband during the Korean War.) I grew up with several Korean American friends and that culture left an imprint on the whole family and on me (I still crave Joy Kim Slote's scallion pancakes.) Fangirl does a much better job with the Mexican American characters, but they were less central to the narrative. Nonetheless, I was pleased that Rowell had multicultural elements to her books.

Rowell writes in the third person, shifting between Eleanor's and Park's POV:

"She would never belong in Park's living room. She never felt like she belonged anywhere, except when she was lying on her bed, pretending to be somewhere else." 

"Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive."

YA author John Green summed it up so well in the NYT: "Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book."

Reviewer's Discloser: I bought Eleanor & Park in hardcover at Sherman's Books. I was too eager to wait until Fangirl arrived in Maine bookstores so I bought the ebook on its release date. Then I loved Fangirl so much that I bought a hardcover copy at Longfellow Books to reread later. I was surprised that Fangirl was 438 pages in print since it read like a book half that length. Rowell's Attachments, an office romance debut, is on my TBR list.

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@Barrie Summy

10X10 Art Show in Brunswick, Maine

Friday night, September 27th is the 10X10 Art Exhibit and Sale. My two watercolors are among the 300 works by 150 local artists. This annual benefit will fund an artist-in-residence program in Brunswick elementary schools. Local restaurants have donated hors d'oeuvres. Come join us!

One of Five Islands

This island is one of five off Georgetown in Maine. The outdoor picnic tables at Five Islands Lobster double as studio space and dining room. In October the light is crystal clear and the crowds are thinner. The lobster is tasty. I return every year.

I usually complete my paintings in one afternoon, racing the tide and waiting for the sun to reveal the shadows. Watercolor captures the flow of the ocean. It is also easier than oil paint to take on location.

This year art time double counts as novel research time. One of my new characters is a homeschooled lobsterman, who looks beyond the horizon. Do you recognize this photo from a few weeks ago?

Lobster Boat at Lookout Point 

Lookout Point in Harpswell is my favorite place to paint, only a 15-minute drive from my house in town. As I work, lobster boats motor in, unloading the day’s fresh catch at the dock. Sometimes I bring home dinner along with my painting.

10X10 Art Show 

At Curtis Memorial Library and St. Paul's Episcopal Church 

Next door venues on Pleasant Street, Brunswick, Maine 04011 

Friday September 27, 2013 from 5-8 pm 

(art is $200, including 10-inch-square frame) 

Public Preview: 

Thursday 9/26 5-8pm and Friday 9/28 12-3pm 

 Click here for Online Preview

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

In The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri returns to her favored themes of cultural duality and assimilation. The late 1960's was a turbulent time in India with widespread poverty and few job opportunities for educated young men. Udayan becomes involved in the Naxalites, a radical Maoist movement to help the poor. Subhash, his cautious older brother, immigrates to the USA for a PhD in science.

Larhiri beautiful prose is layered with an earthy sense of place and symbolic imagery:

"The flooded plain was thick with water hyacinth. The floating weed grew aggressively. Its leaves caused the surface to appear solid. Green in contrast to the blue of the sky. Simple huts stood here and there along the periphery. The poor waded in to forage for what was edible. In autumn egrets arrived, their white feathers darkened from the city's soot, waiting motionless for their prey."

After tragedy strikes in Calcutta, Subhash makes a personal sacrifice to bring his brother's wife to the USA. Young Gauri arrives pregnant in a sari to Rhode Island in winter. She only feels at home when she audits a Philosophy class. The saga unfolds over decades as we follow the family through shifting points of view.

"His  favorite moments were when he was alone, or felt alone. Lying in bed in the morning, watching sunlight flickering like a restless bird on the wall."

Jhumpa Lahiri portrait by Elena Seibert

My one regret (beyond the cover) was that The Lowland centered on Subhash and only tangentially on his rebellious brother. Subhash was a kind, likable character, but he lacked the charisma to carry a novel, and Gauri was too selfish to rouse much empathy. For a student of Philosophy, Gauri lacked a moral code. I wish there had been more about her daughter, a lost child of two cultures. Bela reminded me of Gogol in The Namesake (Lahiri's first novel), but Bela's story was abridged. It's a sign of a good book when you reach the last page longing for more.

"Opening the door, he saw that the tide was in. The sky was bright, the ocean calm; no sign, apart from all the seaweed that had washed like empty nests up on the sand, of the storm there had been."

As much as I love Lahiri's novels, I prefer her short stories. Her character-driven narratives work best in a tighter story arc. The Interpreter of Maladies (1999), her Pulitzer Prize winning debut, was my favorite collection. However, my Indian American friends swear by The Namesake (2004). It doesn't matter where you start; if you read one of Lahiri's books, you'll want to read them all. The Lowland will be released on September 24th, 2013.

Reviewer's Disclosure: this book was reviewed for Main Point Books in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. I received a free ARC but was not otherwise compensated.

A new chapter: Middlebury College

Two views of my son's dorm at Middlebury College.

As my son joined the queue of freshman, my advice was:
"Don't run over the photographer."

My son turned to me and grinned. "Don't be so sentimental."

I laughed with him, fighting back tears. It was a long journey, and I don't mean the five hour drive from Maine to Vermont.

Middlebury Town in Vermont

My son worked so hard to get to Middlebury College, and he got lucky too. Middlebury was the first college we visited together junior year. He fell in love with a hilly campus encircled by mountains, the absurd amounts of snow and a cafeteria open all day long: paradise!

President Liebowitz had advice for us parents: "Your job is done. They're adults. Don't worry; we'll look after them." He celebrated Middlebury's achievements and shared a story about a sobbing parent. He told us "to suck it up." We laughed because it beat crying. It was time to let go.

I said goodbye to my son by cell phone. He was rushing off to take a placement exam. I had never felt so alone, not since my mid 20s. My husband was in Maine, meeting with his freshman advisees at Bowdoin College. Our 16-year-old daughter had already left for a semester school on a coastal farm. For one semester, we will be empty nesters. It's not all bad; I can write and paint without interruption. For years I've been looking forward to this gift of free time. But still.

Look, Beth, Small Damages.

In my new found solitude, I headed off campus, crossing the bridge to the charming town. I took refuge in The Vermont Book Shop, overlooking the river. Driving home, I listened to Beautiful Ruins on CD.

Now I'm back at work, writing a new young adult novel and painting a couple of commissions. Classes have started at Bowdoin too. For the first time, my husband's students are the same age as our child. The dog roams the house, sniffing around suspiciously tidy rooms. Our son calls weekly and our daughter emails. They sound happy. We're all adjusting to this new pace of life.

Blog Watch: Happy 5th Blog Anniversary to Cynthia Newbury Martin! Welcome back Donna and A Cuban in London from summer break! Elizabeth Wix has shut down About New York but is still posting at The World Examining Works.