Jane Smiley is hands-down the writer I've read the most in the past couple of years. It all started with her two novellas, "Ordinary Love" and "Good Will," which I was required to read for my writing class in school. Then,
Age of Grief, A Thousand Acres, Good Faith, and
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel -- all for the pleasure of their company. She gave a reading in Spokane this Spring as part of EWU's Get Lit! festival and that was a very happy day for me. She does these two things remarkably well in her writing, she tells a story that is juicy and almost trashy in the way you can become involved as a reader, all plot and fascination -- AND you can look at her individual sentences, the imagery, the character, and its all so beautiful and perfect. At her reading, she described the way she managed to produce so many novels. Each day she sits down to write, she reads the two pages she wrote the previous day, edits them for grammar and spelling only, refreshes herself as to where she left off, and then writes two more pages. No going back to perfect a phrase or make big changes to the plot. She just gets through it,
all of it, and when the entirety of it rests complete, then she goes back for editing. I'm so bad about getting caught up in perfection as I write, this is not such a bad model to follow... Anyway, I've already finished
Ten Days in the Hills and it was just right for a summer read. Sexy, gossipy, story-telling, relevant politics and subject matter, decadent story-scape. Now I've started
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton and she's found her way to Kansas (which is a primary reason that I picked up the book, me being a Kansas girl to bone). I've paused in this book for my
Emily of New Moon reading, but I'll pick it back up soonly.
I have no history with this book or writer, saving that Pan was born with the assistance of a midwife. I may have even already read it years and years ago, one of those judge-a-book-by-its-cover selections from the new arrivals shelf at the library, but I can't quite remember. I found
Midwives (Chris Bohjalian) at the Goodwill in Bend, Oregon this weekend and decided it would do very well for summer reading. I'll let you know the good/bad/entertaining/banal verdict when its been read.
This book was super hot about two years ago, when it won the Pulitzer Prize. Junot came to Northwestern as the fiction writer-in-residence my senior year there, and I had a brief (and somewhat scary) one-on-one conference with him over some of my own writing. At the time, I had not yet read any of his work (I was busy reading the entire Jane Austen cannon for a literature class), but shortly after our meeting I read
one of his short stories in the New Yorker, and that explained a great deal of his tone and what he said to me during our conference. I found this book at the Goodwill, too, and knew that it would be enjoyable. Probably it will be more than that.
Stuart Dybek's collection of short stories, The Coast of Chicago, matched beautifully my own experience with getting-acquainted with the city. My friend, Steve, raved about Stuart so picked up the book and read it through and through. It was a great thing to read "Pet Milk," while riding the el train, and watch the platforms fly by on the express train -- with all their little boys and huddles of people on them. Then I had the great luck to have him as my writing teacher at NU for two terms -- and he, by far, has been the best instructor I've yet to have. My faith in his writing has lain solely on The Coast of Chicago -- until now. I've set aside this collection of stories, Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, for this summer, as well. Thinking of Chicago is a hard thing for me just now. I miss it. And yet I have mixed feelings about going back. It isn't going to be the same place for me, not with a husband and a baby and a million and two responsibilities -- and I'm afraid visiting it will ruin my memories a bit, it sits in such a removed and golden light in my mind. So, for now, I'll visit this way.
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There is, of course, always more room on the list. What are you reading this summer? Any suggestions???
