Author: Ramona DeFelice Long

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 25

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 25, An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden

AnEpisodeOfSparrows

The Garden Committee is in a tizzy. Someone has been stealing buckets of dirt from the private garden on the public square. Miss Angela Chesney, forceful and sure, is certain the culprits are the wild children of working-class Catford Street. Her gentle and frail sister Olivia, who never questions, questions this: Why are children not allowed to play in the garden? Olivia’s heart condition forces her to observe life in post-World War II London from the windows of the home she shares with Angela. She sees the children running on the streets and thinks of them as sparrows, common and free, and though she is never hungry or cold or needy as they are, she envies them.

What Olivia does not see, at first, is Lovejoy Mason, whose ironic name reveals little about her almost-orphaned situation. What is an almost orphan? It’s a sensitive child of a faux glamorous, faux actress mother who deposits her with a kind couple struggling to run a fancy restaurant in a failing neighborhood. Lovejoy is proud and prideful, and her desperate search for acceptance and beauty makes her try to grow a garden in a bombed out church. To do this she needs dirt—”good, garden earth.” To get it, she enlists the aid of Tip Malone, the biggest, baddest boy in the gang of boys Miss Angela Chesney is sure is stealing from her—I mean, the public square’s—garden. Tip is unwillingly and inexplicably enthralled by Lovejoy, and she uses the tough boy’s soft spot to goad him into helping her with the garden building scheme.

Why is An Episode of Sparrows a good read for women? Rumer Godden was a gifted and prolific author whose stories crossed over from works for adults to young adults to children. She wrote terrific characters who came to life in both exotic and common places, and often addressed themes of social inequality and the powerlessness of children and women. In this book, she uses a neighborhood to intertwine people who would never have a thing to do with one another if given a choice, but must do so because of proximity. Tip and Lovejoy’s odd friendship brings out the best and worst in both of them, and Olivia’s frailty allows her to help more people than anyone expects. Everyone is struggling, but in the very English way of the times, they are all struggling together. The “good, garden earth” that is so rare and precious in this city is what both tears them apart, and brings them together.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 24

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 24, Helen of Troy by Margaret George

helen-of-troy

What is beauty without love? What is marriage without passion? What is battle without a prize? These are questions a reader might ask after reading this account of and by Helen of Troy, whose perfect face launched a thousand ships—a thousand battle ships, that is, heading from Sparta to Troy to separate her from her lover, Paris, and return her home.

This ambitious retelling of the Helen of Troy tale is long (600 pages) and populated with familiar names from Greek mythology: Paris, Aeneas, Priam, Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, Menelaus. It includes classic scenes from literature: the whisking of Helen onto a ship to escape from Sparta; the trick of the Trojan horse; the tribute to the incorruptible warrior Hector. But this novel is not a lesson from a school book, and it is not a fairy tale with no connection to reality. If not for the famous names, and the presence of gods and goddesses, Helen’s plight could be stripped down to a commonplace family drama: The foolish younger brother of a well-to-do family runs off with a married woman, and her outraged husband follows and demands her return to him and their child. In this telling, that simplification makes this a story of woman torn by her choices and a destiny she cannot control. Helen is full of pathos. From birth, her beauty was so great, she herself called it terrifying. She is protected from view—even mirrors—as a child, and then bartered off to marriage with a powerful but emotionally distant man. She meets his opposite—Paris—because they have been set up by vengeful gods and goddesses. They are powerless not to fall in love. Nevertheless, they do and it is real to them. Helen’s sincerity is evident, and so is her growing horror at what their love means for Troy and Sparta.

Why is Helen of Troy a good read for women? The Helen story is big and sprawling, and the body count from the Trojan War is high. As with all stories of war, it leads to the inevitable question: Was it worth it? This is the cautionary question anyone—man or woman—might ask before trading a comfortable, placid marriage for a passionate affair of the heart. Helen’s helplessness at her own fate, her inability to control neither her love nor her despair at what it wrought, makes her beauty a curse and her story a compelling read.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 23

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 23, Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi

or give me death

Who first said, “Give me liberty, or give me death?” Was it statesman and patriot Patrick Henry, in a speech delivered to the Virginia Congress that galvanized support for the American Revolution? Or were those words first spoken by his wife Sarah, pleading to be released from the dry-cellar, where she was put when her bouts of madness became uncontrollable?

This is one of many questions posed in this haunting and illuminating story of Patrick Henry’s family. Narrated by the eldest daughter, Patsy, it tells of her mother’s decline through a veil of fear, love, and helplessness. Sarah Shelton was sixteen when she married Patrick Henry. Years of financial uncertainty wore her down, but it was the birth of her sixth child that hastened the deterioration of Sarah’s mental health. Now Patsy, herself sixteen, must always be on alert because Sarah nearly drowned her baby, and when Patrick left home to attend the House of Burgesses, Sarah told her children he was dead. Sarah is tormented by dreams and visions and egged on by a superstitious servant who thinks Sarah’s “possession” can be prayed away if she is locked in the cellar. This seems a cruelty to Patsy, who is betrothed to a young man—MyJohn—and wishes she could leave home to begin her own marriage. But how can she, when Mama might harm herself or one of the children? As the support for freedom from England grows, Patrick Henry’s home life is equally torn. He and Patsy tour the new “lunatic asylum” in Williamsburg, and come away bonded in one vow: they will never put Sarah Henry in that horrible place. And so they turn the cellar into a place for her, and make it as comfortable as possible, while Patsy realizes with dread that her mother’s madness may be the hereditary kind.

Why is Or Give Me Death a good read for women? Historically, women have been at the mercy of their husbands’ wishes and control, and never more so than when a wife suffered from mental illness. Patrick Henry, though a visionary for a young new country, was a husband of his times. Patsy wonders why her Pa, who is so forward thinking in politics, can be so stern and controlling when it comes to “a wife’s place in the scheme of things?” Can his belief that a wife must never be displeased with, opposed to, or angry at her husband be contributing to Sarah’s madness? Patsy is no more enlightened than her father, but together they must figure out a way to keep their family’s burden from destroying them all. Ann Rinaldi has made a career of making history come alive for young readers. This is one of her best.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 22

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 22, Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

turn of mind

 

Someone has murdered Dr. Jennifer White’s best friend and neighbor Amanda. It is a terrible crime with an unusual element—the killer surgically removed four of Amanda’s fingers. Suspicion naturally falls on Jennifer, who is a retired orthopedic surgeon known to have a close but touchy relationship with the victim. The police are frustrated by Jennifer’s lack of cooperation—not because she’s guilty or she lawyered up, but because Jennifer has Alzheimer’s. Some days, she tries her best to answer questions and assist the police in solving her friend’s murder. Other days, she slips away from her caretaker to have coffee with Amanda because she’s forgotten Amanda is dead.

This could have been a standard thriller that rolled out a story of friends who were not always very nice to one another; a professional woman whose cognitive decline is frustrating and ironic; a mother who puts up with her adult children’s childish bickering; a widow pushed and pulled by family on finances; a well-to-do woman dependent on a caretaker who is poor, patient, kind, and sometimes badly treated by her employer’s children. This book includes all of those plus a murder that can’t be solved, despite the police’s efforts that are in turn sympathetic and bullying toward Jennifer. What elevates this book is the point of view. It is told by Jennifer, an unreliable narrator if there ever was one, who reports events as best she can in the fragments of what she remembers, sees, and understands. Or, thinks she understands. Try as she does, Jennifer can’t make her memory work, so like the police, she doesn’t know whether or not she herself is the murderer.

Why is Turn of Mind a good read for women? Make no mistake, this literary thriller is a whodunit with a twist, and giving a narrator Alzheimer’s to muck up the investigation could simply be regarded as a plot device to add intrigue and interest. This is true but the book goes deeper than that. Because this story is relayed through Jennifer herself, it makes the reader work a little harder to see and understand the subtext in the narrative. It also takes the reader into the heart and mind of a woman who is vulnerable on several levels. Can she trust her children? Can she trust her live-in caretaker? Can she trust her friends? Can she trust her doctors? Every day is a different day with new challenges, completely apart from the loss of her friend and the suspicions of the police. This book will allow you to spend a little time on the inside of a mind slipping away from a once vibrant and valuable person.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 21

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 21, Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup

here if you need me

A six year old girl wanders away from her family while on a picnic near a pond in Maine. When she can’t be quickly found, her frantic parents called the Maine Warden Service. When the search team can’t quickly find the girl, they call their chaplain, Reverend Kate Braestrup, who leaves her own children at home to comfort the little girl’s terrified parents. She tells them she believes their child will be found alive, because that is what the lieutenant in charge of the search told her. She shares this professional assessment with one breath, but in another, internally, she prays to Jesus that it will come true. It does.

This memoir about grief and rebirth is not about a lost little girl who was found alive, although search and rescue is a prominent storyline. This is a true story about the wife of a Maine State Trooper who sees her husband off to work one morning, and never sees him alive again. “Drew” was a father, husband, son, police officer, an “an unusual specimen of state trooper because he had an earring, wrote poetry, and ate whole grains.” He also had plans for a future he would never see. After retiring from the state police, Drew wanted to become a minister. After his death, Kate struggles through the searing pain of loss and honors her husband’s memory by taking up that dream herself. On her first day at seminary, she tells the professor she is there in Drew’s place, but it is not true. What’s true, as she tells herself, is that He is here. I carry him.

Why is Here If You Need Me a good read for women? Grief is a foreign land, and faith is a test not all people can pass. Kate Braestrup’s memoir shares instances of ministering to people while a search-and-rescue team walk, fly, or boat through the ponds and forests of Maine–anecdotes that make good memoir on their own. She kept her faith, despite heartbreak, loneliness, and anger.  Kate loved her husband. She had a good marriage. It’s not easy being a young widow with four children. It’s not easy finding a missing child alive in the woods when your husband died in the front seat of his patrol car. The latter, however, led to the former, and Kate followed the path, first in the footsteps of Drew, and then in her own. Carrying Drew’s dream inside, Kate searched and found her calling.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 20

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 20, The Awakening and Selected Stories, by Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin lg

Kate Chopin’s original title for the story of Edna Pontellier was A Solitary Soul, and why it was changed—and by whom—is a little mystery for Chopin scholars. Both titles reflect Edna’s emotional state in this story of a woman who realizes her comfortable life feels like a stranger’s. It begins with the Pontellier family vacationing on a real Louisiana barrier island called Grand Isle (where, I should divulge, I spend many of my own childhood summers.) It is late in the 19th century, and Edna’s husband Leonce is a successful businessman who, like many men of his time and social standing, escaped the city for a cooler, healthier summer home. Leonce is fond of their two children and indulgent of his wife, but Edna is vaguely unhappy and dissatisfied. She is twenty-eight when she “wakes up” and realizes she is unsure of who she is and what she wants, that she has been defined as daughter, then wife, then mother, but who is Edna herself? She does not know.

During this summer on Grand Isle, she becomes enamored with a younger, idealistic family friend named Robert Lebrun. Here, the story could have evolved into a simple love triangle between a husband, wife, and lover, but Robert is honorable. Edna suspects he is in love with her, but he does not pursue her; instead, he abruptly leaves the island for business in Mexico. She is crushed. Summer ends, and the Pontelliers return to New Orleans, but Edna cannot return to her life as dutiful wife and mother. She eschews the social life she previously seemed to enjoy, to the point that Leonce notices and takes her to a doctor. They are advised that she suffers from a malady of motherhood—what today might be called depression—and is to be left alone until she somehow repairs herself. She will, the doctor assures Leonce, eventually return to normal. But Leonce must leave for an extended business trip, and so Edna has the opportunity to at last be on her own. She moves to a small bungalow, pursues new friends and interest in art and music, and has a brief affair that awakens her sexually. And then Robert returns from Mexico.

The Awakening is a short novel, written in a lovely and sometimes languid tone, with artful use of the unique language and culture in French Louisiana. Chopin describes Edna’s appearance and clothing in detail, both for color and as symbols of her changing psyche.  Often bound with the novel are some of Chopin’s short stories. In her short work, Chopin reveals herself as a master at the simple, often surprising, plot. She introduces characters, problems, places in quick order, and writes with cleverness and craftiness. Some are so short, they are like a whiff and then are gone, and the reader is left impressed with how much occurred in so few words. To appreciate Kate Chopin as an artist, read both the novel and the stories.

Why is The Awakening a good read for women? Kate Chopin was largely forgotten from the time she published (1890s) until a revival of interest during the feminist movement of the 1970s. Now her work is read in women’s studies programs and she is appreciated for bravely writing a story about motherhood and marriage; about illicit love and sexuality; and a woman’s desire to find fulfilment unrelated to domesticity. Like Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina, Edna Pontellier is a tragic and complex character who seeks happiness, identity, and purpose. Edna Pontellier is intricate and puzzling, and Kate Chopin’s exploration reveals her solitary soul.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 19

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 19, Best Kept Secret by Amy Hatvany

best kept secret

Cadence drinks. She drinks too much, and once she drank at a mommy meeting and then blew through a stop sign in her own neighborhood, while her young son Charley slept peacefully in the back seat of the car. This scared her, but not enough, apparently, because on another day, Candace drinks so much, she can’t get off the sofa to answer the door when her ex-husband comes by. When she finally rouses from her alcohol haze, Charley is gone. His father packed up Charley’s belongings and took him away from Cadence for the child’s own protection. Cadence’s secret is a secret no more.

This story is written from Cadence’s point of view, and she makes it clear that she never wanted to be this person who drinks to the point where her life is no longer within her control. Only a few years ago, she had a marriage and a career as a journalist and was a responsible, sober parent. She had a beautiful baby she loved very much. Then her marriage broke up and though she still loved her baby very much, she now had money worries, and trouble getting to sleep. She found it helped to have a glass of wine before bedtime. To help her sleep. Then two glasses, and then one during the day…. There’s a moment in the story when Cadence sees a doctor and tries to explain her progression from a glass of wine to help her sleep to someone who would get so drunk, she passes out in front of her own child. She can’t pinpoint the moment when her desire for a drink became a need. She can’t say for sure when she became hooked and out of control—became a drunk, an addict, an alcoholic—but she can say for sure she never wanted to be a mother who lost her child because she drank too much. Reading Cadence’s story, I believe her. I also believe that the only thing harder than not drinking, for Cadence, is to continue to exist without her son. This story is about Cadence’s struggle to regain what she has lost.

Why is Best Kept Secret a good read for women? The path to sobriety is not a pretty one, but this is a heartfelt and artfully written story about a person with a problem. Alcoholism and drug addiction are not strangers who live on some foreign street. Cadence feels like a real person and her situation, though extreme, didn’t start out as extreme. She didn’t become an alcoholic in a day, and she didn’t recover in a day, but she never stopped loving her son and she never stopped being a valuable person. The book’s success is in convincing the reader—and Cadence herself—of both of those.

 

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 18

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 18, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

handmaid's tale

The biggest difficulty in choosing a Margaret Atwood novel to review is selecting which one, as her body of work is brilliant, insightful, and daring. The Handmaid’s Tale, though published in 1985, is still as timely as it was thirty years ago. The novel is dark and dystopian. Its title is a bold tribute to Chaucer, but it is a modern speculative novel about politics, theocracy, the subjugation of women, and the struggle for agency in a frightening new world.

The story is told by Offred, a concubine in a place called the Republic of Gilead. In the not so distant past, this republic was the United States of America. A coup by an ultra-conservative group called the Sons of Jacob kills the President and most of Congress and suspends the US Constitution. The country is reformed into a repressive, militarized, Old Testament-based regime which creates new social classes powered by men. The new rulers strip women of their rights, power, and property, beginning with their finances. Most women are not allowed to read. They are, however, allowed to procreate—if they are able. Many in Gilead are sterile, a result of rampant pollution and STDs. Women who can bear children belong to a select group called handmaids. The handmaids and the men they are assigned to are only supposed to have sex during “the Ceremony.” Wives are present at and participate in the Ceremony, which may be creepy good fun for the men, but is just creepy for the reader and the handmaid.

Offred is the concubine of a high-ranking official known as The Commander. The Commander takes a shine to her and has illicit, non-Ceremonial sex with her. He brings her forbidden items such as makeup and magazines. The Commander’s wife, a former televangelist named Serena Joy, suspects the hanky-panky with the handmaiden, so she makes a plan. She sets Offred up with Nick, the Commander’s chauffeur, who may or may not be loyal to the Republic of Gilead, as he may or may not be part of a resistance group called the Eyes of God. Offred doesn’t know. She is a pawn in a society that espouses many upstanding principles but lives out none of them. She decides to trust Nick.

Why is The Handmaid’s Tale a good read for women? Before the coup, Offred was married, with a job and a life. Fascists stripped her and her countrywomen of all rights, but allowed them to contribute in the one way considered valuable in this new world: to serve and service men. Reading this book would be a serious offense in the Republic of Gilead, which is reason enough to read it.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 17

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 17, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley

13 ways

What is a novel? According to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley, a novel is – simply – a “lengthy written prose narrative with a protagonist.” In this book, which itself is a bit lengthy, she uses thirteen approaches to deconstruct novels. In the first 12 chapters, she explains how novels were created; shows its place in history; examines its creators; picks apart its psyche; and so on. She also offers two chapters of writerly advice and encouragement for the inspired fools (my term) who choose to write a novel of their own. This may sound like dry chapters from a ponderous tome, but they are not. As with her many novels, Smiley writes here with warmth and insight. She loves novels. She sees their warts and weaknesses, but she is keen to point out what works and to share the delight of storytelling. I read the first 12 chapters one at a time, like lessons, and made notes to myself on the pages. It was the first time since school that I felt compelled to take a highlighter to a book on my personal bookshelf. The points Smiley makes on theme, authenticity, and memorable characters are worth bright yellow markings.

All of the above is only half of the book. The #13 in the ways to look at a novel is a report on reading 100 novels. She selected from classics to modern works, “dead white men” to authors of more varied cultures, and wrote a critical essay. For each novel, she explained why it was unique and worth reading. She discussed themes, subtext, structure, and flaws. Her discussions are longer and much deeper than the snippets I have written here, but as with the first twelve chapters, I read an essay a day—admittedly, skipping a few reviews that did not interest me– and thought about Smiley’s thoughts for a while. I came away with a richer understanding of, and appreciation for, the work many of my friends do every day.

Why is 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel a good read for women? Jane Smiley’s body of work is not focused toward either gender, and her 100 books include books by male and female authors. Reading this will make you a better writer, and a more informed reader. Its length may be daunting, but it was enjoyable to read in bits and pieces. It took me a year to read the entire book, because I wanted to think about each essay before reading the next one. That makes this a book to savor over time, and appreciate the work put into it by an insightful modern author–who happens to be a woman.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 16

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 16, Shattered by Debra Puglisi Sharp and Marjorie Preston

debra puglisi

On a Sunday afternoon in April, a man high on drugs drove around looking for a woman. He saw one—a dark-haired woman planting roses in her yard. The man decided he wanted this woman, so he went around to the back door of her house and snuck in. The woman’s husband was inside, so the man shot him. When the woman came in, the man hit her on the head, raped her, put her in the trunk of his car, and drove her to his house. He kept her there, tied up and terrified, and assaulted her repeatedly for five days. When he left the house to go to work, he left the radio on to drown out her yells for help. It was from the radio that the woman found out her husband was dead.

Violent acts against women happen every day in America, most often to strangers, but sometimes to people we know. I did not know Debra Puglisi, though at the time of her abduction, her house was less than five miles from mine. I remember my shock when the local TV station ran a news ticker that she had been found—alive. For the five days she was missing, she was presumed dead by many, so the news seemed miraculous. The book she wrote to describe her ordeal reveals that it was not a miracle, but a determination to live and see her children again, that gave her the courage to fight out of the ropes on her wrists, find a phone, and call 911 to save herself. What may be miraculous is that she found the inner strength to write in graphic detail about what happened in those five days, but also about the turmoil and pain in the weeks, months, years to follow as she readjusted her life. Now, a large portion of it is devoted to other survivors.

Why is Shattered a good read for women? This is not fiction, so an easy happy ending is not possible, but a story about regaining peace and power after a life-altering event is of great value. This is a real, honest, and raw account of being assaulted and held against your will, but also about the humiliations and anger of recovering. It is, ultimately and more than anything, a survival story.  Debra was reunited with her children. She resumed her work as a nurse. She remarried. She speaks to survivors. She helps law enforcement understand crime from the victim’s side. She testified against the man who murdered her husband and tore apart her life, and her book continues that testimony. I have many friends who write crime stories, fiction and nonfiction. There is no workshop, how-to book, or other writing aid that will give you a victim’s perspective like Debra Puglisi Sharp’s story can.