Currently Reading

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Format: Audiobook

Thoughts: I like it more so far than I thought I would. I'm about a quarter of the way through (it's long!) and things are getting creepy. I relish the idea of the obdurate past barring an easy time of what we think we should be able to control.

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein

Format: Kindle

Thoughts: This book, a sophomore novel, is good. As always, I appreciate a well-written narrative from a character the opposite gender of the author. The story is tense with suburban woe and the inalienable truth of self-serving human nature. The plot isn't sweeping, or epic, but its themes are real. 

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Format: Kindle and audiobook 

(I'm having a hard time getting through this, so I've switched from Kindle to audio)

Thoughts: I loved, really loved, Lauren Oliver's Before I fall so I was happy to shell out full price for the Kindle format special edition e-book. But after the first couple of chapters, I put it down and wasn't able to pick it up again. The tone is a bit depressive, but I can feel the dampened rage bubbling beneath the wet blanketed surface and I look forward to getting on with reading this. 

How Could I Forget? To Live is to Love, to Love is to Weep

How could I forget the single most heart-wrenching book of my 2011? This year, I read A Dog's Purpose: A Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron.

My darling Scott started reading this book to me at night in the late summer. Scott employed a perfectly-honed voice for the puppy narrator, all mischief and wonder, unabashed love and learning. I was starting to fall in love with the story until - well, I won't give away what the major plot device of this book is, but let's just say until.

I cried uncontrollably. I pressed my face into my pillow and wept. Scott tried to comfort me, laying his Braille Reader down and placing a hand on my shoulder. "Carleigh," he whispered, "it's all right." But it wasn't all right. I insisted he never read another word from that book to me again. I couldn't take it. I asked for Bailey (who usually runs away immediately at the sound of my oncoming tears) and Scott dutifully retrieved him. I hugged my dog to me and cried some more. I love that dog. We did not return to the book.

Then, Scott and I holidayed in New England this fall. We were driving between Boston and Maine and I needed to be read to to stay awake while driving after a red eye. I inhaled and made my request. I wanted to try again. I wanted to hear A Dog's Purpose. So Scott read. And I cried. And he read more that night, and again the next day between Maine and New Hampshire, between Concord and Montpelier. We finished that beautiful book in Providence, late at night, and again I wept. Scott held me close for a long time. We laughed and talked about Bailey. I cried a little more. And then we slept.

Having a dog (and a dog having you, truth be told) is one of the great joys of life. Loving Bailey has opened my heart in ways I never knew it could be opened. I am a better person because of him and I am an even better person for having read A Dog's Purpose.

We've got to choose our dog books carefully. (Where the Red Fern Grows? Yes. The Art of Racing in the Rain? No.) I recommend this book to anyone who needs a shot of emotion straight to the heart, or needs to be reminded that there are always second (and third, and fourth) chances to get things right.

My Favorite Books of 2011

Some of the below were published prior to this year but I read them in 2011 and this is a totalitarian blog, so I get to do what I want. These are the books that I loved the most in 2011.

Big Girl Small, Rachel DeWoskin (2011)
I first fell in love with a character with dwarfism many years ago, reading the beautiful Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi. So I was happy and tingly to read Rachel DeWoskin's debut novel, the story of Judy, a short girl with a big voice (both literally and literarily). This wasn't the romantic, disabled-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold-overcomes-life's-challenges tome that I thought it would be, though. This was young adult fiction with a major twist of realism: Judy is victimized in the same way that young women are victimized every day and she has to deal with it just like every young woman has to deal with it - regardless of her disability. DeWoskin's take on the very real and horrific sexual encounters of the young really got to me. I recommend this book for anyone who likes strong but fallible female characters.

Room, by Emma Donoghue (2010)
Room was published in 2010 and I can't believe I didn't read it before 2011. I feel like this novel completely expanded the reach of the grand literary device of POV. Never before have I read such a terrifyingly moving and accurate narration. Jack turns 5 in the first chapter. With painful accuracy of this child's development, Jack's world starts to come into focus and we wish we had never looked. Room is our worst nightmares come true; Room is a truth of the human condition that cannot be ignored.

Sweet Valley Confidential, Francine Pascal (2011)
I read this. I'm not going to lie; I never lie. I read this book in one giant sweep of adoration and affection, despite the fact that I threw the thing from my hands in frustration every other chapter. Why? Because every other chapter is written in Jessica's hyperbolized voice. Yuck! I want a rewrite! I demand a rewrite! More importantly, I want more!! This book makes the list just because I'm a sucker for sentimentality. My major criticism with the story line (Elizabeth has lost Todd to Jessica; they're both lost without her, yada yada yada) is that it isn't true to the franchise's plot lines and character arcs, but who cares. My favorite books of the series were always Jessica's Secret Diaries, the ones where we found out that she and Todd cheated together many, many, many times. So, no surprise.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (published many times, first anonymously in 1949 and later with Frankl's name in several reprintings)
My therapist recommended I read Man's Search for Meaning because I'm a Holocaust fetishist but also because I need some help dealing with my own suffering. Frankl's part Holocaust memoir, part Introduction to Logotherapy was a compelling read. I could see, taste, smell Auschwitz. I could also see, taste, smell a palpable will to live, the waxing and waning of hope in the most extreme circumstances, and I could also understand the strong desire to create something out of otherwise the opposite of something - a vacuum of destruction. We are broken, again and again by life, by ourselves, by others. We are rebuilt again and again by life, ourselves, by others. This book was meaningful to me in 2011; may it be meaningful to generations to come.

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2009). I became a vegan in 2009. To bolster my willpower, I read this important and meticulously-researched work of nonfiction by the always-impressively boom-voiced Foer. This book was life-changing for me because it was absolutely riveting. A stylistic choice I did not appreciate, however, was the exclusion of footnotes and sources until the end. I would have much rather had every fact's citation nearby than having had to wait until the end to try to absorb some of the intensive and extensive body of research (not that I didn't believe the unbelievable findings of Foer, but that some of the shit in that book was so crazy - I needed to know more; I needed the truth of the truth). So, I am vegan still, and I sometimes hold this book in my hands and just shudder with the truth of what we call food in this country.

Coverage!

I finished my current script; the PDF was sent off to a professional studio reader. I got my coverage back. What a terrifying, titillating experience.I hate criticism, but I cannot stress how completely essential it is, both to take and to consider.

Here is the logline to The Trees of Tantytown, according to the professional reader:

In a small American town, the treacle trees have seemingly been over-­‐harvested and are drying up, causing mayhem and rebellion amongst citizens, as they watch the town’s industrial magnate take over the treacle industry, leaving them to ‘eat dirt’.

So, if you want to buy my script, I guess its for sale. Email me!

Neglectful, Ambivalent

I am neglectful, I am ambivalent

I get an itch to write. I can feel this in my fingertips, they want to be moving. There is a barrier, though; it is invisible and impentrable, and I do not write. I do not exercise my fingers as they want to be exercised. I do not let the words flow from my brain to my face to my neck to my shoulders to my arms to my elbows to my wrists to my hands to my fingers to my fingertips. And then I do.

It is not enough to text me your thanks – put my name on your acknowledgements page. It is not enough to laugh at my jokes – tell me you love me.

I have been practicing saying “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure” because I don’t say it enough. Which is weird because my overriding internal emotional state is that of “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure”. I cringe at perceiving myself as being perceived as being ambivalent. I am ambivalent. I am infallible to you, I am errant to me.