Former Lemurians – Page 5

Author: Former Lemurians (Page 5 of 137)

by Andrew Hedglin

I know that Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize (in 1989, for Breathing Lessons), but I still believe that she doesn’t really get her due in the modern literary cannon. Her audience is probably half as large as it should be, probably because many men (wrongfully) don’t see her novels about untranquil domesticity as relevant to them. I feel this worry is short-sighted, because when her novels have male protagonists, she does not ask them “what does it mean to be a man?”, but “what does it mean to be a person?”

One such novel, A Patchwork Planet, (as well as Saint Maybe, one of my favorite novels ever and one I hope to write about on the blog some day soon) exhibits Tyler’s keen eye for characterization and humanity’s relentless search for a meaningful life.

I picked up A Patchwork Planet (originally published in 1998), for the first time twelve years ago, during my first year of college, and recently again in anticipation of the release of Tyler’s new novel, Clock Dance (coming out in July). As you might imagine, it read very differently during very different points in my life.

A Patchwork Planet tells the story of Barnaby Gaitlin, an underachiever from a wealthy family, who progressed from a mild juvenile delinquency to a manual labor job helping elderly people accomplish their household tasks. He’s divorced with a daughter he sees once a month, and rents a room in somebody else’s house.

In addition to laboring under a set of generalized expectations, Barnaby is also yoked with a very specific and peculiar expectation: that every Gaitlin heir will meet his angel and be provided with guidance, wisdom, and purpose, just as the family’s paterfamilias had, long ago, when Grandfather Gaitlin invented his mannequin that made the family fortune.

Barnaby thinks he might have met his angel, a strait-laced blonde bank manager named Sophia, on a train to Philadelphia. As usual, Barnaby manages to complicate his quick, clean encounter by getting involved with her. But then again, maybe everything seems to progressing forward in Barnaby’s life: he’s picking up more work, makes headway on a decade-old debt he owes his parents, and starts seeing Opal, his daughter, more frequently.

Then, Sophia’s Aunt Grace accuses Barnaby of theft after learning of his troubled past. Sophia tries to intervene, thinking she can help, but she only confirms her own secret distrust of Barnaby while supposedly trying to help. Barnaby soon has to figure out whether he is capable of change, or if he is merely defined by his past actions, even to new friends and acquaintances.

One thing I did struggle with during this book, one that isn’t often much of a problem in Tyler’s writing, is that Tyler does struggle a little bit to manifest a believable blacksheep. Barnaby drinks in moderation, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t curse, sleeps around a little bit but not a worrying amount; he is a genuinely good worker. He’s a disappointment relative to his opportunities, but he’s not quite the mess of a human being with a long list of bad habits he’d acquire in real life to merit such a soiled reputation.

Barnaby does have a yearning, however, to be a better person for the people around him, and it’s this quality that breathes life into his character. It’s also what makes him such a distinctly Tyler creation, another denizen of her Baltimore worlds that keeping bringing us back, making us look into ourselves and keep asking questions.

Be where your feet are with ‘Come Matter Here’ by Hannah Brencher

By Former Lemurians

On May 31, 2018

In Culture, Religion

by Abbie Walker

I discovered Hannah Brencher right after I graduated from college. I picked up a copy of her first book, If You Find This Letter, and it felt like she had written it for me. Hannah’s words and raw honesty about how she found purpose during a hard time in her life by leaving love letters to strangers around New York City was a huge source of encouragement and wisdom for me.

The thing about Hannah Brencher is, once you hear her words, there’s no going back. Since that first introduction, I’ve followed her blog, watched her TED talk, have participated in several of her webinars, and even seen her speak at a conference in Jackson. So I had no doubt that her new book was going to have an equally special place in my heart.

Part memoir, part pep-talk, Come Matter Here is about how to be present in a world obsessed with highlight reels and instant success. Hannah shares her heart with the same rich, honest voice her followers love as she recounts moving to Atlanta and all the struggles that come with being a twenty-something in a new place.

From battling severe depression and walking out of the darkness, to finding community and the trials of dating apps, Hannah’s story is refreshingly authentic and relatable. By sharing her own struggles and how she got through them with the help of faith, friends, therapy, and lots of coffee, Hannah is able to help guide others through similar situations.

With grace and wit, Hannah discusses how to dig deep in relationships, how to walk with faith through the valleys, how to show up and stay for people, how to find a church, and so much more. This book contains a plethora of life-altering truths, but I think the overall theme can be summed up in this: Build out of love, not fear.

“Fear builds a road map when we aren’t looking,” Hannah writes. “Fear can either keep us standing in one place, or it can propel us toward something better.”

Reading this book felt like listening to the advice of the big sister I never had. I absolutely love Hannah’s writing style and each chapter had something that spoke directly to me. I love how her friends and the people she encountered became characters that contributed bits of truth throughout her journey. You can’t help but love Hannah and see yourself in her story.

I also appreciate Hannah’s ability to talk about her faith and to communicate how God showed up in various ways. I especially like the “Steal This Prayer” section that allows the reader to reflect after each chapter.

Come Matter Here is perfect for anyone who is tired of letting fear write the narrative and is ready to fully occupy the space they’re in. With so many frame-worthy quotes of wisdom, you’ll want to highlight and underline the heck out of this book! I will leave you with some of my favorites:

“Some days aren’t about what you get done; they’re about who you empower.”
“When you only focus on the life you project to the world, you start living halfheartedly. It becomes nearly impossible to be content with the life you have.”
“I’m learning that life isn’t about the destinations we can boast about getting to; it’s about all the walking in between that feels pointless when you try to take a picture of it because no one will understand it like you do. It’s the in between stuff that fleshes out a story—gives it guts and transformation.”
“I think our purpose is to just show up to the moment we’ve been invited into, the moments other people ask us to come and inhabit with them. We get to be mile markers and cheerleaders. We get to hold signs. We get to have so much purpose when we just look around.”

‘A Shout in the Ruins’ by Kevin Powers is an affecting novel of Southern violence

By Former Lemurians

On May 28, 2018

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

By Guy Stricklin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (May 27)

In his daring second novel, A Shout in the Ruins, Kevin Powers—author of The Yellow Birds—looks piercingly at the American South whose savage history he carefully traces in places like Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital and through characters “lined with mark after mark of whip and brine.”

Powers’ sprawling cast moves in and out of focus during a story that crisscrosses the antebellum South and its ensuing century of violence and upheaval. The story opens onto three characters each uniquely confronting a rapidly changing and wholly indifferent world: Emily Reid, the unloved and unloving daughter born in Chesterfield County in 1847; her father’s slave, Rawls, whose docked toes cannot keep his melancholic soul from wandering; and 93-year-old George Seldom, a widower losing his home in Richmond to the impending construction of the interstate highway in 1956.

Their individual lives are knit together along with numerous others in a narrative broken up by digressions of memory and shifting points of view. This dynamic approach allows motifs and whole scenes to resurface countless times. We watch houses burning, embers, ashes, bleached bones found in the ruins, a world on fire, and a world collapsed. A Shout in the Ruins is reminiscent of another recent multi-generational novel, The Son by Philipp Meyer, whose praise for Powers is quoted on this book’s jacket.

As the novel unfolds, Powers depicts the variety of ways violence—emotional, as well as physical—is enacted and endured by these characters. George’s pain is shapeless, systemic, and reflective; Rawls’ expansive, without border, hereditary; and Emily’s private, deep, a cave whose hollowing darkness she cannot or will not plumb. Pain, though, is pain and you read on hoping salvation of a kind finds its way, though it will have to be as varied as the characters themselves.

Powers writes with a sharpness that is both convincing and convicting. This is a book rooted in a South we know. The violent rending of a nation and the unspeakable cruelty of slavery reverberate throughout, but Powers moves beyond these very real acts and takes on a perspective which sees even those seminal events as echos of some more ancient transgression. Meditation might strike closest to what this novel aims toward. Quite quickly, Powers is examining not only his characters but the whole of humanity. In passages evoking Kubrick’s 2001, he describes the order of the world as repetition: violences repeated, passed down, and given to each successive generation from the very start. “The gun goes off when the line gets crossed, and the line got crossed a long time ago, when we were naked and wandered the savanna and slept beneath the baobab trees” writes Powers. Violence, as he tells it, is both personal and cosmic; intimate and elemental.

And yet throughout, punctuating this darkness, are flickers of love and goodness and kindness: a baby rescued, help given, hope trusted, and good done in spite of its seeming uselessness, its transience, and its insignificance. As with many of his characters, Powers is asking us to consider that perhaps, in spite of all the world’s violence and pain, in spite of everything, “One good thing still counts.”

A masterful novel, Kevin Power’s A Shout in the Ruins is a timely powerhouse full of seething violence and remarkable humanity.

Guy Stricklin is a bookseller and the First Editions Club supervisor here at Lemuria.

Kevin Powers’ novel A Shout in the Ruins is Lemuria’s May 2018 selection for our First Editions Club for Fiction.

Make summer reading fun again

By Former Lemurians

On May 22, 2018

In Oz: Children's Books, Oz: Middle Grade, OZ: Young Adult Fiction, Reading

By Clara Martin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (May 20)

School’s out! But you’ve got a long summer reading list.

This summer, what’s the best thing you can let your child do? Let them read whatever they want to (within reason, of course–I’m not advocating that you let your child read Crime and Punishment or anything that’s not age-appropriate).

So, let me say it again. Let them read whatever they want to.

I can already hear you.

“Oh, but he won’t read that. It’s too many pages.”

“She only likes horse books.”

“But does it have AR points?”

“I want her to stop reading graphic novels.”

“I tired of Captain Underpants.”

Let me stop you right there.

The other thing you say is, “I just want my child to be a better reader,” or “I just want my child to love reading.”

Make summer reading fun again by letting your child choose what they want to read. When they choose what they read, reading becomes a normal part of your child’s day, so when they have to read a book required for school, it isn’t so much a chore.

A study by Scholastic shows 61 percent of students aged 15-17 do not read a book of their choice during school. Further, the study says the majority of kids ages 6-17 agree “it is very important for their future to be a good reader” (86 percent) and about six in 10 kids love or like reading books for fun (58 percent), a steady percentage since 2010.”

And in the same study, here’s what Scholastic discovered about the percentage of children who have trouble finding books they like to read:

“Parents underestimate the degree to which children have trouble books they like. Only 29 percent of parents agree ‘my child has trouble finding books he/she likes,” whereas 41 percent of kids agree that is a challenge–this percentage of kids increases to 57 percent among infrequent readers vs. 26 percent of frequent readers.”

childrens reading graph

From all of this information, we can see that:

It’s hard for children to find time to read a book of their choice independently during the school year.
Making time to read a book of choice is even more difficult the older the child gets.
About half of children have trouble finding books they like. This can lead to negative attitudes towards reading. Or, the child will just stop reading entirely, except when they are required to read for school.

So, how do we help a child find what they like to read? By giving them choices, and not limiting those choices. After all, there is no such thing as “too much reading.” If there is a graphic novel series with 100 books in the series, let them read the entire series. You can’t buy the entire series? There are libraries made for that specific purpose. Get a library card with your child this summer, and make it an adventure.

If the book is a non-fiction sports’ facts book with a lot of glossy pictures, such as Scholastic Year in Sports 2018, let them read that book. If your child will only sit down with magazines, then get them more magazines to read.

And if the book does not have horses? By talking to your librarian or bookseller, chances are, they can recommend similar books. That’s what they’re trained to do.

This summer, I’m encouraging you: forget about the points, forget about whether is is “on reading level,” and don’t worry if it looks like the only thing your child will read for the rest of his life are comic books. Maybe that’s all they’ll read for the rest of the summer, but guess what? It will set them on the path to being a reader for the rest of their life.

Oh, and as for Captain Underpants? The author of that series, Dav Pilkey, donated more than 3,000 books to children in the Hattiesburg school district in conjunction with the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival. As Pilkey says, “Reading Gives You Superpowers,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Visit www.scholastic.com or www.readbrightly.com for more book suggestions for your child and resources for parents. Visit your local bookstore or library for suggestions and let librarians and booksellers help your child find a book they want to read this summer.

Clara Martin is the manager of the children’s book section (Oz Books) at Lemuria.

Finding Her Way: ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller and ‘Motherhood’ by Sheila Heti

By Former Lemurians

On May 17, 2018

In Fiction

by Trianne Harabedian

How is an immortal witch from Greek mythology like a modern writer in her late thirties? They both defy the usual expectations of women and make happiness for themselves!

circe I first heard about Circe, the novel by Madeline Miller, from Tayari Jones. The author of An American Marriage came to visit Lemuria back in February and she kept mentioning how she had read an advanced copy and loved it. So when it finally came out in April, I bought a copy immediately. She was right–the retold story of the witch from the Odyssey was completely captivating and did not disappoint. As the daughter of Helios, the sun god, Circe falls short when she does not exhibit powers of her own. Increasingly isolated in her father’s house, she begins to spend time in the realm of mortals, where she discovers her connection to nature and her calling as a witch. The novel follows her life, weaving in other characters and stories from Greek mythology. I’m a huge fan of retellings, especially of fairy tales and myths, so I devoured this like candy. I couldn’t predict the ending, which was fun because I can usually tell where stories are headed. But it made so much sense and wrapped up so nicely that I felt complete and satisfied.

In contrast, I picked up an advanced reader copy of Motherhood by Sheila Heti by accident. I thought it was a collection of funny, nonfiction stories about parenting. Instead, I found myself reading, and absolutely loving, a serious and sarcastic novel about what it means to be a woman and how that role is too often defined by the existence of children. The narrator, a writer in her late thirties, feels like her approaching fortieth birthday means she needs to decide once and for all whether she wants to have kids. She spends time with her friends and their children, trying to imagine herself in their place. She examines her marriage and her husband, a man who has never personally desired children. She also reflects on her relationship with her own mother. Through it all, the narrator has a set of ancient Chinese coins that she uses to answer questions, like tarot cards or a magic 8 ball. The writing style reminded me of Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro, with its honest narrator and nonfiction-esque storytelling that makes you really think about your own life. It took me a few pages to get into, but I fell in love quickly. By the time it ended, I wanted it to keep going to I could read that book forever.

It’s been exactly a year since I graduated from college, and more and more I realize that no one’s life looks the same. Women especially are expected to do certain things by certain ages, to hit milestones and fulfill specific roles. But the fact is, everyone is different. We all deserve to be able to choose our own path, which is why I loved reading these two books in a row. They are incredibly different, but both carry the same message: Love yourself and do whatever you feel called to do.

Rachel Hollis’s ‘Girl, Wash Your Face’ is a well of wit and wisdom

By Former Lemurians

On May 10, 2018

In Psychology

by Abbie Walker

“Do you ever suspect that everyone else has life figured out and you don’t have a clue?”

If you’re anything like me, you answered “Yes” to that question. And if so, Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis might be the book for you.

girl wash your face Hollis is best known for her lifestyle website, The Chic Site, where she offers tips on motherhood, homemaking, career life, and more to her millions of followers. She’s also the CEO of her own media company.

In this book, Hollis lays out 21 lies that women often believe about themselves, lies such as “I’m Not Good Enough,” “I’m Not a Good Mom,” “I Am Defined by My Weight,” and other struggles that keep many women from living joyful, productive lives. Dishing out the same honest advice that her online community loves so much, Hollis combats these lies with truths she’s learned over the years, using her own examples of mistakes and faith to encourage and inspire.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t know who Rachel Hollis was before I picked up this book. But when I kept hearing her name crop up among podcasters, bloggers, and other women I admire, I decided to check it out. And I’m so glad I did!

What I love about this book is how refreshingly honest and real Hollis is. Instead of the fluffy, surface-level content that I unfortunately see from many Christian women authors, this book is packed with a lot of humor and wisdom. She covers a variety of topics: marriage, motherhood, comparison, rejection, addiction, and loss. Each chapter had something that hit home with me, and even though I’m not a wife or mother, the parts where Hollis talked about her struggles in those areas addressed a lot of fears I didn’t realize I had. Some of my favorite chapters were “I Should Be Further Along by Now” and “I’m a Terrible Writer.”

Hollis is a relatable and entertaining narrator who you can’t help but love. I laughed with her as she recounted peeing her pants as a grown woman, empathized with her through her painful adoption journey, and gave her a mental fist pump when she talked about training for a half-marathon.

The advice in this book is extremely practical. Each chapter ends with three tips that Hollis calls, “Things That Helped Me.” It’s reassuring to hear someone older than me talk about their journey so I don’t feel so alone in where I am now and to have a better sense of how to navigate what’s ahead.

Girl, Wash Your Face is for women of any age or life stage who want to face the lies and insecurities head on and start taking charge of the narrative. I’ve already been recommending or gifting this book to all my closest girlfriends.

“Get up, right now. Rise up from where you’ve been, scrub away the tears and the pain of yesterday, and start again . . . Girl, wash your face!”

May the Force Read with You

By Former Lemurians

On May 4, 2018

In Science Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you. It’s been a busy year for Star Wars fans, with Solo coming out soon, Rebels just ending its four-year run, and The Last Jedi coming out last December.

What may have slipped past your radar, if even if you’re more of a Star Wars fan than not, are three fantastic books set in the galaxy far, far away that were released this last year. The books can serve as excellent jumping off points to the “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars, because, for different reasons, they absolutely don’t require (although they do reward) deep foreknowledge of much of the Star Wars universe.

The first book I would recommend, which ties in the Solo movie coming out on May 25, is Last Shot by Daniel José Older. The story follows Han Solo and Lando Calrissian and they face off, over the course of 20 years, with a demented doctor who plans to lead a droid uprising and wipe “organics” out of the galaxy.

Older has a tricky job to pull off with Last Shot, because we’re so used to the main characters (especially Han) that it’s easy to make a misstep and write dialogue or choices that don’t jibe with at least some reader’s conceptions of the characters. Overall, though, I feel he does a good job with both of them while integrating new characters, including another hotshot pilot, an Ewok hacker, and a Twi’lek love interest for Lando.

The story is less enthralling than the character work, but still serviceable. Structured like a mystery/thriller, the novel can sometimes get choppy, going back and forth between three or four different timelines. Ultimately, it gives the characters something to do while providing a real sense of danger and unease.

phasma The next movie-based genre-bender I’d like to recommend Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson. This book might be my favorite of the three. Captain Phasma is the chrome-plated stormtrooper who menaced and glowered throughout the first two films of the sequel trilogy. If you’ve seen The Force Awakens, you know everything you really need to in order to enjoy this book.

Phasma sort of fills a very Boba Fett-type role in the new trilogy. She looks fierce and awesome, she is shrouded in-universe by myth and reputation, and…well, if you’ve seen either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, she shares one other disappointing trait with Fett as well.

Nevertheless! If it’s myth and reputation you’ve come for, this excellent origin novel by Dawson crackles with danger and menace. She wasn’t always a faceless servant to the First Order. A scant few years ago, she led a brutal life on the failing planet of Parnassos. She and her brother Keldo jointly rule a small band of survivalists called the Scyre [pronounced SKYur], until one day General Brendol Hux of the First Order falls from the sky in a damaged ship. Everything changes for Phasma and her small but deadly band of warriors as they risk everything to return Hux to his ship so they can, ostensibly, reap the beneficence that the First Order is able bestow upon them in the form of advanced technology.

Phasma shows a side of the Star Wars universe that is typically ignored by the flashier parts of the franchise. Some aliens species do exist on Parnassos, but most of the space-age technology is even more unfamiliar to them to than it would be to us. Phasma is a post-apocalyptic road novel as much as it is a part of the Star Wars universe. You can see Phasma’s character development from cave-dweller to the silver-suited character that you see on the silver screen, but it’s her personality that shines in this tale, not her later shiny accouterments.

The other book I have to recommend, which relies heavily on its movie source material, is From a Certain Point of View, an anthology of 40 short stories that retell the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV: A New Hope, even though the title is taken from Obi-Wan’s line in Return of the Jedi). Released in honor of the 40th anniversary of that movie’s release, each of its protagonists are either minor or unseen characters that provide fresh perspective on the story we see onscreen. It also includes a story apiece from both Delilah Dawson and Daniel José Older.

The tone and quality of the stories do vary wildly, but when they are good, they’re really good. Some of funny, some are serious, but at best they really expand the universe and make it feel lived-in. Some of favorites were about a random Jawa who decided not to erase R2-D2’s memory, and observing the final moments of Alderaan from the queen’s point of view on its surface, and the circuitous hi-jinks of the motley cantina crew, and the toll the mission to blow up the Death Star took on regular, anonymous members of the Rebel Alliance flight crews.

From a Certain Point of View takes you back to the start, completing a circuit of wonder and awe, that I, and surely many other Star Wars fans, were looking for when we first made our trip into outer space.

The Clue is in the Cards: ‘Bluff’ by Michael Kardos

By Former Lemurians

On April 5, 2018

In Mystery

by Andrew Hedglin

I am not a card sharp. When I was in middle school, my nickname was “Ace” (a play on my initials), which made me fascinated with the look of playing cards. Also, I play a pretty mean game of double solitaire. But I am not a card sharp.

bluff Still, the aforementioned interest in card iconography made the cover of Bluff by Michael Kardos an alluring draw, so deciding to judge a book by its cover, I picked up an advanced copy with anticipation and was not disappointed.

Natalie Webb is a professional close-up magician, already washed-up by the ripe old age of 27. While still immensely talented, she has burned bridges with the gatekeepers at the upper echelon of her profession. And when a frustrating holiday magic show goes dangerously wrong, Natalie finds herself in financial and legal limbo.

What begins as a journalistic investigation into cheating at private poker games soon leads to a bigger–and riskier–opportunity with an enigmatic partner who Natalie can only hope is trustworthy enough to hitch her wagon to her star. But the characterization of Natalie as a complex person is as integral to this thriller as the plot. Her inner drive for greatness is as big an inducement to joining her partner’s devious plan as any financial gain.

Bluff is told from a likable, almost breezy, first-person perspective. But it is not afraid to go a little dark, either in its backstory or its denouement. The ending, without giving anything away, has some wicked sleight-of-hand that would make its main character jealous. Kardos, the author of Before He Finds Her and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State, has studied and mastered the mystery genre, and added a little magic to it as well.

Michael Kardos will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from Bluff.

Get to Know Trianne

By Former Lemurians

On April 4, 2018

In Get to Know...

How long have you worked at Lemuria?
I have worked at Lemuria since June 2017, so 10 months!

What do you do at Lemuria?
I’m the person at the front desk who, according to my coworkers, always has fun with my customers! I’m always up for a good book chat, recommendation, or laughing at my own mistakes. I’m also in charge of the cooking, gardening, bar, and health sections. There are so many books in those areas of the store, but I love going through them and finding new favorites to recommend.

trianne

Talk to us what you’re reading right now.
I just finished Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton, a fantastic thriller which comes out in June. I’m also finally reading The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne, which I can hardly put down!

What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)?
I picked up The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa a year and a half ago in Portugal, planning to read it after I graduated. Hasn’t happened yet.

How many books do you usually read at a time?
I have always been the type of person who reads one book at a time. Then I started working at Lemuria. So currently, I’m reading four.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books.
How about my top five books since working at Lemuria?

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles,
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
American Housewife by Helen Ellis,
Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro
Celine by Peter Heller

Favorite authors?
Mark Doty, Gail Carson Levine, Jeffery Eugenides, Shannon Hale, Kay Ryan.

Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with?
Poetry. And everything else.

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria?
I attended Belhaven University, studying Creative Writing and English.

If you could share lasagna with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them?
Jeffery Eugenides. It would be amazing to talk about life and literature and the writing process.

Why do you like working at Lemuria?
I love the way everyone here is so passionate not only about books, but about the business. Mississippi culture and independent bookstore culture mix so perfectly. There is a genuine desire to help every customer find not just a book, but the right book.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come?
Mark Doty. I love his poetry, it’s so concise and elegantly shimmery, and it would be fun to hear his own verbal interpretations.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be?
A little monkey to climb up the shelves and retrieve books.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first?
I would go back to Belfast and visit everyone I met while studying abroad. Then I would go back to California and visit my family. Then I would go to Russia, because I’ve always wanted to go.

The Spectacular Perils of Grace: ‘Anatomy of a Miracle’ by Jonathan Miles

By Former Lemurians

On March 15, 2018

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

“The secret to a happy ending,” Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers once sang, “is knowing when to roll the credits.”

Cameron Harris was a one-time high-school football phenom in Biloxi who lost his mother in a car accident, and then nearly lost his home to Hurricane Katrina. He enlisted in the Army, only to be paralyzed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. In what can only be described as a miracle, he suddenly regains the ability to walk four years later. The Catholic church begins an investigation to certify this as an official miracle and a reality television show is soon set to premiere about Cameron’s new life.

Any feature journalist or newspaper reporter worth his or her salt would stop the narrative right there. But he novelist Jonathan Miles, in his new faux documentary Anatomy of a Miracle, knows this story is just beginning.

Cameron’s miracle sets into motion a chain of outwardly expanding satellites struggling to make sense of this cosmic anomaly, to figure out what it could mean to live in a world where miracles might be real. First, there is Cameron’s 91 year-old black neighbor Eulalie Dooley who needs him to pray for her grandson. Then it spreads to Lê Quynh and Hat, the financially-strapped Vietnamese immigrants who own the convenience store wherein Cameron gets healed and who stand to benefit from the resulting publicity. Next, to Dr. Janice Lorimar-Cuevas, Cameron’s rational, skeptical VA doctor who is on the emotional run from her fabulist Delta father. On to Scott T. Griffin, the Southern mythos-obsessed reality television producer who knows a great story when he sees one. And further, to Euclide Abbsscia, the bemused Vatican investigator who is hired to find out the circumstances that surround Cameron’s miracle and his past. The ripples go ever onward and over Cameron and his devoted older sister and caretaker, Tanya.

If that sounds like a lot of names to keep up with, don’t worry. Miles fastidiously constructs all the characters in this community of Cameron. They all have complex histories and motivations. Characterization and setting are perhaps this finely crafted novel’s forte.

Cameron has always had a private, repressed personality, so the spotlight only begins to settle on him when his status as a spiritual celebrity is interrupted by a very public bar fight captured by the TV cameras. Cameron then is forced to reckon with his biggest secret that will threaten not only his own reputation, but the faith of many others looking to him.

Anatomy of a Miracle is a fantastic story that continually managed to surprise me. Just as I thought I had figured out what type of book I was reading, the story shifted to encompass something else. It always returned to Cameron as its axis, though. I would recommend this book especially to fans of The Nix by Nathan Hill.

I think the image I’ll keep coming back to, as its most lasting impression, is toward the very end, when Cameron visits his local parish priest Father Ace. Cameron is trying to negotiate a truce between himself and the church (and, symbolically, the public) that had drawn him in close as a sign of God’s work, then spat him back out as imperfect. Although unsuccessful, Cameron at least manages to draw a truce between himself and his very nature, defiantly and finally proclaiming his wholeness:

He wheeled around and faced the open church door, the flooded veins of his neck surging. “I’m not living in a state of grace?” he said aloud, unconsciously shifting from foot to foot in a defiant shuffle-step every one of his lower body’s nerves thrumming and twitching his voice climbing from a choke to a shout. “I’m not? I’m not?”

Jonathan Miles will be Lemuria on Tuesday, March 20, at 5:00 to sign and read from Anatomy of a Miracle. Anatomy of a Miracle is one of Lemuria’s two March 2018 selections for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

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