Not Just Another Memoir

You all know what I think about The Glass Castle.  It's a memoir, and it's in my top 12 books all-time.  It is a classic example of non-fiction reading like fiction.  Well, Alabama Blue, by Toni K. Pacini, feels a lot like TGC.  Here's what the back cover has to say:

From white trash mill village girl to Senior-Cinderella.
In Alabama Blue, Toni K. Pacini shares her tumultuous journey.  A girl raised-up like an invasive weed in an Alabama cotton mill village where illiteracy, bigotry, religious fanaticism, and abuse were as commonplace as fried chicken on Sunday.
From pillar to post, and coast to coast, she sought a dauntingly illusive refuge.  Toni fled a life predestined for sorrow from cold cradle to cold crypt, and she made it!  Her life needed a major re-write , and, in Alabama Blue, she rewrote the hopelessness into hope, the sorrow into joy, and left the past to rest, as she moved forward into a new tomorrow.

There really aren't many "spoilers" in a memoir.  We know going in that she had a rough time of it and came out okay.  Otherwise, how would she be able to write a memoir?  But getting from there to here must be incredibly difficult, as, fortunately, so few of us can possibly know.  I will, instead, focus on the writing and a few observations.  Here we go:

1.  We get a feel for how rough it was for Toni right at the beginning of the book.  It sets the tone for what follows.
2.  I liked the pictures that Toni sprinkles throughout the book.
3.  Norma Rae, with Sally Field, was filmed in the town that Toni's mother and grandparents lived (I know...random).
4.  Toni made 50 moves in 16 years.  2.5 years was the longest time in one place until her mid-40s!
5.  We find out early that Toni's mom told her that she tried to end her pregnancy with Toni by jabbing metal clothes hangars into herself.  She blamed Toni for her father leaving her. Can you even imagine?
6.  I definitely had moments of smiling and chills.  It wasn't only glum.
7.  There was a time in Toni's life that she lived in the Bay Area.  That's always fun for me.

Let me give you a few examples of Toni's writing:

1.  "Screams welled up in my throat like lava from a once dormant volcano, now desperate for release."
2.  "Darkness to me is not about Satan or demons.  It is about hopelessness.  Where there is no hope, there is no light.  Without hope there is no reason for tomorrow.  I had no reason."  Ouch.
3.  "You want to chase your child into the arms of an adult predator?  Ignore them.  Make them feel invisible.  Then all a predator has to do is pay a little attention.  No candy or puppies required."  Kind of makes you want to cry, doesn't it?

Clearly, Toni can write.  There are many instances where she makes the reader feel deeply for her situation.  In fact, if I didn't already know that she is now okay (she is our November RBC author), I'm not sure I could have read this memoir.  It's definitely a rough one.  But she's doing well now.  Thank goodness for that!

Another RBC Author - Another Successful Evening

Last night was our July RBC meeting.  We had Toni Piccinini, author of The Goodbye Year, as our RBC guest of the month.  She came all the way from Marin County with her daughter-in-law, who is adorable.

Toni has quite a background.  She is a microbiologist and worked at UCSF.  AND she is a chef and owned a restaurant with her husband.  AND she teaches cooking classes.  AND she has written a book!  AND she is an absolute delight.  We all enjoyed the heck out of her.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Our next author is Rachael Herron, who will be coming to Recycle on Tuesday, August 30. We are now scheduled with authors through February, since we just added Elizabeth Hunter.  If you want to see all of our upcoming RBC authors, click on The Recycle Book Club Schedule.

The Latest Megan Abbott - You Will Know Me

This is Megan Abbott's 9th book.  And my 2nd.  2 years ago, I read The Fever.  It was pretty highly rated on Amazon and Goodreads...but not so much by The Book Sage (was I less than sage, you might ask? - check my review on 7/5/14).  I gave it a 2.5/4.  So when Meg, from Tandem Literary, sent me the ARC for You Will Know Me, I figured I would give it another go.  Different book, same result - 2.5/4.  I now know not to read #3.  It's not bad; it's just not good enough to read a 3rd.  Let's back flap it right now:

How far will you go to achieve a dream?  That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete.  For the Knoxes, there are no limits - until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.
As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself.  What she uncovers - about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself - forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay to achieve Devon's dream. 

Even though my older daughter, Meredith, was in gymnastics for several years, I still learned a whole bunch about the sport from this book and, more importantly, what goes on behind the scenes - with the parents, the coaches, and the incredible pressure that accompanies a high-level gymnast.  The gym that Meredith belonged to, West Valley Gymnastics in Campbell, CA, actually produced an olympian in 1996.  Amy Chow was part of the Magnificent 7, the gold-medal winning U.S. team in Atlanta (she also competed in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney).  So I remember the buzz.  Meredith wasn't part of the "in" group.  So it was fun to really learn what goes on when there is an Olympic-quality gymnast in your gym.

But this was the best part of the book for me (along with quotes from Nadia Comaneci at the beginnings of 3 sections).  Other than that, it didn't much grab me.  I think the only physical reaction I had in the entire book was one knitted brow.  C'mon, that's just never going to get more than a 2.5/4 rating from me.

The writing was okay, but nothing great.  And a little over half-way through, things started happening which just didn't seem plausible to me.  After that, I read it just to finish it.  I kind of gave up.  But having said all of that, there are lots of people who like Megan Abbott's novels way more than I do.  You may want to test it out yourself.  But don't say that I didn't warn you!

Still Another Local Author - with Another Debut Novel - and Another Excellent Book

Wow.  There must be something in the air.  I keep reading local authors, oftentimes with debut novels, and finding them to be totally terrific.  Am I lucky or what?  (This is where you're supposed to say:  "It's not luck.  It's your literary intuition and skill!")  In fact, books for my last 5 local authors have gotten ratings of 3.25, 3.5, 3.25, 3.5, and 3.75.  Not too shabby (as Adam Sandler says in The Hanukkah Song).

Yaa Gyasi's novel, Homegoing, can best be summed up as sweeping.  It starts in Ghana in the mid-1700s and ends up in America in the present day.  Let the flap set the stage:

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle.  Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery.  One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fanta and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization.  The other thread follows Esi and her children into America.  From the plantations of the South to the Civil war and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Doesn't this sound good?  Well, it is.  In fact, it's immediately going on my rec table (tomorrow? maybe.  Next Sunday? for sure).  Do you know what hit me when I was reading Homegoing?  It's that the writing is just consistently good.  As you know, oftentimes I will share a few lines or passages that stand out for me.  But that didn't happen with this one. And I think it's because it was well-written throughout.  That's impressive!

Here's another interesting commentary on the book.  I didn't have a bunch of emotional reactions to characters.  There were definitely some.  I have notes that say "Unh," "Whoa," "Huh," and even a "No, no, no, no."  I also had a combo of smile, tears, and chills all at once.  But it wasn't every character and every generation.  This did NOT detract from my enjoyment of the book.  When you're telling the story of 8 different generations x 2 different families, it's a little more difficult to form those emotional attachments.  However, I was still totally caught up in each story.  And I give Yaa credit for making basically 16 different sections of the book in only 300 pages just the right length.  I was never anxious to leave a particular character.  But I also was okay going on to the next one.

In case you haven't already figured it out, I really liked this book...a lot.  I highly recommend it.

You Want to Know What Family Is? Read: The Ones Who Matter Most, by Rachael Herron - NOW!

2 years ago, I read Rachael Herron's book, Pack Up the Moon.  I really liked it a lot.  But I hadn't made any effort to read either of her other books - until now.  Why now?  Well, I've got a very selfish reason.  I was hoping that Rachael would agree to be our RBC author for August or September so that I could have our members read Pack Up the Moon.  Only Rachael said that she wasn't promoting that book anymore.  She said that The Ones Who Matter Most" (TOWMM), which came out in April of this year, was the one she was presenting.  What could I do?  I got a hold of TOWMM and read about 100 pages before I emailed her and said:  "YES!"  I was really enjoying it.  We agreed on a date (Tuesday, August 30).  And then, of course, I kept reading.  Were the last 300 pages of the book at the same level as the 1st 100?  Nope.  THEY WERE BETTER!  What a terrific book.  Here is the back-flap summary:

After her husband dies unexpectedly, Abby Roberts comes across something startling: wedding photographs of him with another woman, along with pictures of a baby boy. Shocked, Abby does something utterly impulsive: She embarks on a journey to discover the family her husband apparently left behind.
Money has always been tight for single mom Fern Reyes, and never tighter than now.  But this month, in place of a child-support check, her ex's pretty, privileged wife appears on her doorstep with far too many questions.  Unfortunately, her young son is so taken with Abby that Fern doesn't have the heart to send her away.
What begins as one woman's search for truth becomes a deep bond forged between the unlikeliest of people, and the discovery that there are many ways to make a family-as long as you take care... 

That is no lie about what goes into making a family.  And on top of that, the writing is excellent.  A very few standout examples:

1.  A potential past wife trumped a possible fling like the sun trumped a flashlight.
2.  "But if you show up with a washer, I'll kick you so hard in the balls you"ll wish you were born with ovaries."  It was the same thing as I love you.  Diego smiled and kept his eyes on the ceiling of the sky.  That was his way of saying it back.
3.  She laughed, the feel of it rusty in her throat.
4.  The abrupt change in topic felt like a change in elevation.  Abby could almost hear her ears pop.

There are a million more.  But there were definitely other reasons why I liked this book so much.  Wanna hear (read) 'em?  Of course you do:

1.  I was very emotionally connected to the characters/story.  In fact, I made a note at one point that said "major crying."
2.  The 1st 48 pages of the book are in the voice of Abby.  Page 49 is the 1st time we hear Fern's voice.  I liked the timing of making the switch from Abby to Fern.  AND I liked that the rest of the book goes back and forth.  I equally responded to both protagonists.
3.  You want to know how much I liked this book?  I actually smiled a bunch in a section about a dog!  Yep.  For those of you who know me, you also know that this is unheard of.  I am absolutely not an animal person (although I really do like Bob, the cat at Recycle Books).
4.  Rachael does a great job with the ending.  That's all I can tell you now.  We'll discuss it after you've read the book.
5.  I don't want to make too big a deal about the fact that the book takes place in the East Bay, where I grew up.  I will just say that she mentions Albany, Berkeley, and Oakland - the 3 cities that I grew up in!
6.  Rachael gives descriptions of having a miscarriage and how a cremulator (for cremation) works that felt very real.

Something else I rarely (if ever) do is quote the author in a Conversation Guide or Acknowledgement Page.  But I'm going to do that here.  The reason is that I think it really captures the essence of a work of fiction that sprinkles in  segments of nonfiction (see #6 above):

Dropping pieces of nonfiction into fiction creates a small, tangible connection: real life intersecting with the imaginary.  Characters meeting "characters."  The whole book, of course, is mine.  It came out of my head, so it belongs to me (and really, I belong to it).  But those tiny real-life cameos can help bring books to life.

Final thought?  I couldn't be happier that Rachael "made" me read one of her other books. I would have been content to revisit Pack Up the Moon.  But then I might never have read The Ones Who Matter Most.  That would have been a real shame.

Local Author, Yaa Gyasi, at Rakestraw Books in Danville

I know that the title of this post is not too exciting.  But I did get the chance to see Yaa Gyasi this past Tuesday night.  The timing was fortuitous because Nicole Hughes, formerly of Kepler's, strongly suggested I read Gyasi's book, Homegoing.  And since Gyasi lives in the Bay Area; and because I'm always looking for local authors for the RBC; I purchased her book and got ready to start reading it.  And then I saw on a Rakestraw email that Gyasi was going to be at their store just a few days later.  Divine timing, right?  Ok, divine might be a bit strong.  But the net effect is the same.  So, Joni and I ran up there, fighting the horrendous commute traffic, and still got there in time for a quick bite (at Sideboard) before the 7:00 event.

So, what about the event, you ask?  Well, we learned some very interesting things about Gyasi's process in writing the book along with her background:

1.  It took her 7 years to write.
2.  She connected with agents through the Iowa Writers Workshop that she attended for several years and where she finished her book.
3.  Much of the book takes place in Ghana.  That is where she was born and where a lot of her family members still live.  She and her family moved to the U.S. so that her father could get a PhD in French!
4.  She entered a children's literary competition at the age of 7 which is when she knew she wanted to be a writer.  Levar Burton even signed her certificate of participation!
5.  She knew the 1st 2 and last 2 characters of the book, but not the many in-between (the book goes from the mid-1700s to the present).
6.  She has already been on a local book tour and will be going on a 10-city, 13-day national tour in October.  Plus, the book will be coming out internationally the beginning of 2017, and she will be touring across the pond!  How cool is that?  (P.S.  I guess it's going to be a bit difficult getting her to come down to Recycle Books for the RBC.  Agreed?)

Here are some pictures.  And I will be reviewing the book in a couple of days.

Yaa being introduced by Michael, the owner of Rakestraw Books

WHOOPS:  Aria Glazki will be coming to Recycle Books tomorrow morning to sell/sign her 3 books from 11-2, not from 9:30-12:30.  My bad.

  

Another Local Author - and Another Good Book

Love Me Two Times, by Philip Michaels, is a very good combo historical fiction/literary fiction/love story.  The back of the book says "FICTION/Historical."  But I think it's much more than that.  Let's go right to the summary:

Patrick settled into his leather first-class seat, sipped coffee, and tried futilely to concentrate on the Chronicle's sports section rather than on Morgan.  What is it we must discuss?  Will I finally learn why she did it?  Outside the window, far below, Lake Tahoe was inching toward him, and it made him think back to the first time he'd seen the lake from the air.  How many flights ago was that?  Maybe a thousand flights?  Indeed, over the course of his lifetime, he had flown well over a million miles, but this flight was different.  This flight, with each elapsing second and each passing mile, was conveying him to a place and time he could neither forget nor escape.

Much of this book takes place at and around Cal Berkeley in the late 60s - exactly when I was there!  So when they go to Top Dog on Durant Avenue, so did I - a lot (I even went once with my in-laws).  And when they go to Moe's Books, I did too.  And when they talk about tear gas in Sproul Plaza right before everybody stormed People's Park, I was there - and felt the effects of that tear gas.  These are just a few of the "coincidences" that Patrick (and Philip Michaels) and I share.

Plus, there's a bunch of Boston stuff when Patrick goes to Harvard.  Since my older daughter lived there for 2 years; and my younger daughter went to BU (Boston University) for 4 years; I know lots of those references too.  How crazy is that?  But, fortunately for you, I will spare you all the landmarks from that area that I have in common with Patrick.

But enough about me (yeah, right).  This is a story about Patrick and Morgan in the late 60s and their love affair.  It's about how they ended up apart.  And it's about why Morgan wants to see Patrick when he comes to Boston for a funeral - 43 years after their break-up!  P.S. All of this is right up front.  So these are not spoiler alerts.  Onward.

Love Me Two Times grabbed me in the very 1st paragraph.  That happens occasionally, but not very often.  It's well-written, and I really liked how the author lays the story out.  There is a little bit up front about Patrick going back to Boston for a buddy's funeral.  And the end of the book talks about when he gets there.  But all the rest of the book takes place late 60s/early 70s.  You know on the 1st page that he ended up not being with Morgan.  But most of the book serves to build up their relationship from their days in Boston and Berkeley.

Do you have to know Cal Berkeley or Harvard or even Boston to enjoy Love Me Two Times?  Absolutely not.  It's a good old-fashioned love story with a bunch of history thrown in and written as literary fiction.  Read it.  You can't go wrong.

Book Signing:  This Sunday, from 9:30-12:30, Aria Glazki will be selling and signing her book, Mending Heartstrings (and maybe her other 2 books?), in front of Recycle Books in Campbell.  And as an added bonus (or a dark negative), I will be right next to her at my rec table.