Book Stack ~ October 2023

 A monthly post about what I've been reading.

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

My books-per-month rate went way down between September and October, in part because I didn't have another week away at a residency and in (larger) part because I spent a lot of time binge-watching Ugly Betty. But somehow I managed to read three new releases, a possibly unprecedented occurrence. 

Fiction

At the beginning of October, I participated in a book fair, and the author whose booth was next to mine was Rebecca Turkewitz, with her debut short story collection, Here in the Night, a delightful melange of spooky tales, which in an uncharacteristic move, I actually read soon after coming home with it. If you love short stories, you'll love this book. If short stories leave you vaguely unsatisfied, pick up this book--every single one hits that elusive short story sweet spot. 

I also read one more Mary Stewart, Rose Cottage, which was a nice, pleasant read but not very suspenseful--there's a sense of something amiss when the main character returns home to clean out her grandmother's cottage, but it ends up going in a very different direction than Stewart's suspense stories. 

Nonfiction

I had the good fortune of attending a reading by my friend Melanie Brooks of her new memoir A Hard Silence in early October (and, again, read the book right away--perhaps I'm turning over a new leaf and no longer hoarding books before I get around to reading them!). It's about the corrosive nature of secrets--specifically the secret her family harbored for years about her father's HIV diagnosis, because of their (very rational) fear of the stigma they would experience. It's a heartfelt, moving, loving, beautifully crafted book.

Finally, I read Soil, by Camille Dungy, a gorgeous book (inside and out--I mean, look at that cover!!!) about turning a suburban lawn into a wildflower paradise, parenting during the pandemic, contending with nearby wildfires and other signs of climate change, grappling with systemic racism and the colonial history of agriculture, nomenclature, and taxonomy, writing about nature from a perspective other than the Lone White Male, and lovingly tending the land. I admire it so much, and it made me want to get my hands dirty, even though I'm the world's laziest garden (I really love that Dungy's primary garden focus is flowers--vegetables are secondary!).

Hearts Walking Around Outside Our Bodies

 

Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

― Elizabeth Stone

I was in the shower when news of the Columbine shooting came over the radio. C came into the bathroom of our little apartment in Gardiner and said, "There's been a shooting at a high school in Littleton." My sister went to Littleton High School at the time. I had to rinse the shampoo out of my hair and scramble into a towel before I could come out and hear the details--different high school. Other people's sisters and brothers killed.

I heard about the Sandy Hook shooting on NPR over Saturday morning pancakes--my car at the time didn't have a radio, so I didn't hear the news on the drive home. I spent the weekend weeping and grabbing my kids, who were in second and sixth grade, to hug them at random times. I didn't know I'd been holding my breath until five o'clock Monday morning when a snow day was called and I inhaled deeply for the first time all weekend.

The call about Lewiston came Wednesday night. C's college, across the river from Lewsiton, would be closed the following day due to an "active shooter" event--at least sixteen dead, several more wounded. The next morning, eighteen dead and the shooter at large. Grocery stores and businesses around the state closed. The twins' colleges, more than an hour's drive away from the shootings, suspended classes and organized activities, because no one knew where the murderer was. No one felt safe.

Thursday and Friday passed in a surreal state of dread. There was no reason to suppose the shooter would find his way to our corner of the state--or our children's. Yet low-flying planes and helicopters passed over all day. What could they possibly see from up there? You know the rest of the story--they found his body Friday night. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. For some reason they always kill themselves after inflicting maximum damage on innocent victims, never before.

I breathed a sigh of relief when my kids graduated eighth grade. They made it through elementary school without being shot. And again when they graduated high school. We live in a country where it is an achievement to make it through thirteen years of school without being killed in the classroom or the hallways or on the playground by a man wielding a weapon of war. But getting through school does not guarantee our children safety from being blown apart by bullets fired from high capacity guns. There is still college, the movie theater, church, big box stores, concerts, night clubs, and now bowling alleys and bars.

I do not want to write about this today. I do not want to think about my children walking around as vulnerable as hearts outside of bodies. Of the child killed last week. Of the adults killed who were somebody's children. Of the children being bombed and killed and terrorized in Ukraine and Gaza and Israel. All I know is that until we learn to value life over death, human hearts over weapons of war, none of us will ever be safe. 

A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."

*Header photo is an Andy Goldsworthy-inspired sumac leaf design by C, E, and Z, circa 2016.