Fiction – Page 2 – Lemuria Books

Category: Fiction (Page 2 of 54)

By Valerie Walley. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 29)

The Secrets We Kept is a debut novel by Lara Prescott based on the true events surrounding the 1957 publication of Dr. Zhivago, a 20th century literary masterpiece combining a sweeping love story with intrigue, political hardship, and tragedy, set between the Russian Revolution and WWII. One of the greatest love stories ever written, it was made into the haunting film featuring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for it, which he was made to turn down by an embarrassed and outraged KGB. It was banned reading there until 1988. But if you haven’t read it, now you’re up to speed, and you can read The Secrets We Kept!

Set in 1957, The Secrets We Kept tells of the CIA’s mission to weaponize a work of art by using this publication against Russia behind the Iron Curtain. The novel is set against the backdrop of the decades long love story between author Boris Pasternak and his muse, Olga (the inspiration for Lara), who spent years in and out of Russian prisons. The stuff of her own life and her relationship with Boris could be a novel in itself. The novel alternates between this story and the stories of two contemporary, unconventional, and mold-breaking women ahead of their time. Sally and Irina are seduced and spurned by the CIA’s typing pool, eventually becoming spies themselves. Their stories, along with a chorus from their co-workers–in some cases first generation college graduates, speakers of multiple languages, and pilots–have now been relegated to the CIA typing pool once the men have returned from WWII. These are the voices telling the story of bringing Dr. Zhivago into print by smuggling it back into Russia. These three women–Olga, Irina, and Sally–do change the course of history through the secrets they keep.

In settings from the Russian countryside, and Pasternak’s own dacha, and on to 50’s Milan and Paris, and grounded back into the reality of an era in which women were trying to find a meaningful workplace in male dominated postwar fifties DC, this is an unputdownable, stylishly plotted and told novel for all.

I urge you to pick up The Secrets We Kept and be swept away into Russia and intrigued by the thrilling story of spy craft. Ultimately, though, it will be each woman’s story that will haunt you for a long time. And while you don’t have to have read or watched Dr. Zhivago, you will probably want to.
Fun fact–Lara Prescott is named after Boris Pasternak’s heroine and as a child often listened to “Lara’s Theme” played by her mother’s jewelry box. You’ll be able to find out more about her obsession with all things Russian, and Dr. Zhivago in particular, when she’s here for a reading at Lemuria on November 21.

This bold and unconventional historical thriller is already a runaway bestseller. Perfect for book clubs, it was also chosen by Reese Witherspoon‘s Hello Sunshine book club.

And along the way you’ll find out how a piece of art changed the world and the course of history in so much a lovelier, more meaningful way than anything social media will ever be able to do.

Valerie Walley is a Ridgeland resident.

Lara Prescott will be at Lemuria on Thursday, November 21, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss The Secrets We Kept. Lemuria has chosen The Secrets We Kept as its December 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Pulitzer prize winner Elizabeth Strout revisits popular character in new book, ‘Olive, Again’

By Guest Author

On October 15, 2019

In Fiction

By Amy Lyles Wilson. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 13)

If you are already charmed—and simultaneously put off—by Olive Kitteridge of Crosby, Maine, welcome back. If you’re new to Elizabeth Strout’s expertly crafted small-town characters who face the same challenges as the rest of us, we’ve been waiting for you. Elizabeth Strout has released a sequel to her beloved book in this year’s Olive, Again.

Olive’s social ineptness has not improved since Strout introduced her to us in 2008’s Olive Kitteridge, for which Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Olive continues to utter just about every thought she seems to have, regardless of how it might sound or whom she might offend. You want to love her for it, though, as more than once Olive says something you wish you’d had the nerve to say yourself.

You might describe Olive as crusty, but you must also concede that she has moments of thoughtfulness. Just as you are tempted to label Olive as self-absorbed, she shifts her focus to someone who might otherwise be overlooked. Even though she tends toward cantankerous, she is neither all bad nor all good. Indeed, there is something quite captivating about Olive Kitteridge.

Whether she’s chatting with a now famous former student she misjudged or trying to flee a baby shower, navigating a second marriage or trying to connect with her grandson, Olive is steadfastly herself in these pages. As we move into old age with Olive, along the way Strout seamlessly jogs our memory regarding characters and situations we first encountered in Olive Kitteridge, allowing readers to move through Olive, Again without having to search too hard for the backstory. Like Olive Kitteridge, Olive, Again is a collection of linked short stories. Olive doesn’t feature prominently in all of them, but you know she’s there.

Olive is in her eighties when we leave her this time, dealing with her declining body and confronting her wonderings about life: how she’s lived it, what it all means, where she might have gotten it wrong. The last chapter may not seem as well developed as others in part because the reader starts to miss Olive even before the closing sentence.

If we pay attention, Olive Kitteridge of Crosby, Maine, teaches us how to hold our tongue, and when to speak our piece. She shows us how to embrace someone on the other end of the political spectrum, and reminds us that love takes many forms. That might sound like a lot to expect from a work of fiction, but Strout is expert at her craft. Her literary skills are complemented by her respect for her fellow human beings and for the reader. For the power of story.

Jackson native Amy Lyles Wilson, M.A., M.T.S., is a writer and teacher in Nashville who helps people tell the stories they need to tell. Visit her on the web at amylyleswilson.com.

Author Q & A with Shaun Hamill

By Guest Author

On September 15, 2019

In Fiction, Horror

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 15)

A self-acknowledged “steady diet of horror fiction and monster movies” as he was growing up has, for Arlinton, Texas, native Shaun Hamill, resulted in a debut novel that makes Halloween look like a day in the park.

A Cosmology of Monsters turns the lives of one decent family into a nightmarish sequence of circumstances that blurs the lines between reality and the unknown–which is a good thing for those who love the spooky genre.

Hamill, who earned his writing stripes working on his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has seen previous fiction work appear in Carve magazine and Split Infinitive.

Today he resides in Alabama.

Tell me about how you developed such a strong interest in horror stories.

Shaun Hamill

I’ve always been drawn to stories about what might be hiding in the dark. Maybe it’s genetic: my mom kept stacks of horror and thriller novels around the house when I was a kid, and we rented a lot of thrillers from the video store. But I was also lucky enough to encounter three bits of kid-friendly horror at just the right time. The first were Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. The second was Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? show. The third was AMC’s 10 p.m. classic monster movie feature every Friday night, where I first saw Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein. From there it was a natural progression to slasher movies, Stephen King, Anne Rice, H.P. Lovecraft, and a lifelong love affair with the genre.

In your acknowledgements at the end of A Cosmology of Monsters, you refer to your debut novel as “this weird literary genre hybrid.” With the current rise in the interest of horror literature, film, and TV, explain where you believe this book fits (or does not fit) within the seemingly expanding genre of “horror.”

When I started Cosmology, I was only following Toni Morrison’s advice and writing the exact book I wanted to read–something that could balance emotional realism with the sense of dark wonder I seek in horror fiction. Through luck or kismet or what-have-you, my book is being released amid a true horror renaissance. In the past few years, artists like Carmen Maria Machado, Victor Lavalle, Ari Aster, and Jordan Peele have provided an embarrassment of elevated or literary horror, and we’ve also gotten a spate of great mainstream horror as well, including the new IT movies, Stranger Things, and the 2018 Halloween, for example. My hope is that Cosmology will sit somewhere between those two poles, attracting mainstream and literary readers alike.

A Cosmology of Monsters is a story about a really nice guy (Harry Turner) and his family, whose journey into darkness begins with the creation of a “haunted” Halloween house in their backyard. One thing leads to another, and eventually the entire family descends into a state of constant tragedies as each is touched by feelings of the presence of “monsters.” Please briefly explain the premise of this sprawling tale of fear and heartbreak.

A Cosmology of Monsters is a literary horror novel about a family running a haunted house attraction in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas. Narrated by the youngest child, Noah, the novel tracks the family’s fortunes across 50 years, and explores the monsters–both metaphorical and literal–that haunt them. It’s a generational saga, an homage to Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, and most importantly, a story about the ways love can either save or damn us.

Ultimately, the story is a mixture of thrill, suspense, mystery, and dark forces, all preying on a decent family that seems to attract more than its share of misfortune. Sometimes it feels as though the metaphorical and the “real” situations and settings blur, as scenes, and sometimes characters themselves, quickly transform. How should readers interpret these changes–and are there glimpses of hidden messages in these scenes?

Although much of the book is meant to be read literally, there are a few places where the literal and metaphorical blend–particularly in the “Turner Sequence” interludes between the main story sections. While I wrote the book to be enjoyed and understood in a single reading, I also designed in some secrets that will, I hope, reward multiple readings and close attention. The book has mysteries to be parsed, if the reader is willing.

Are you surprised by the acclaim and attention your debut book has drawn, and do you have plans for another book in this same vein in your future?

It’s funny. Right before my agent and I started submitting this book to editors, I told my wife that I didn’t expect it to sell. I thought it was too odd, that even if publishers enjoyed reading it, they wouldn’t know how to sell it to a general audience. I have never been happier to be wrong. The novel sold quickly, to the incredible and enthusiastic team at Pantheon Books. The entire publication journey has followed this pattern–with me as the gloomy naysayer, and the universe or fate surpassing all my expectations. This is a long way of saying that yes, I’m both surprised and incredibly grateful for the positive attention the book has drawn, and I hope it means I’ll get to write and publish more novels in this same vein in the future.

Bonus question for you! Define “Cosmology” and tell me about the title of the book.

“Cosmology” is an interesting term. In science and religion, it’s the study of the origin, life, and eventual death of the universe, and the rules or forces that govern those processes. In philosophy, it’s the study of existential questions that are beyond the reach of science. I’ve always loved the word–both its sound and its meaning. I think it’s an appropriate moniker for a story in which a narrator is examining his own life from end to end and uncovering the secret forces that have shaped his existence.

Shaun Hamill will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, September 18, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss A Cosmology of Monsters.

Familial Fright: ‘A Cosmology of Monsters’ by Shaun Hamill

By Hunter

On September 9, 2019

In Fiction, Horror

A Cosmology of Monsters, the debut from Shaun Hamill, has a story so richly compelling on an emotional level and so full of creeping dread that it is more meant to be read, than to be read about. Because of this, I will do my best to refrain from revealing too many details from the plot of the book.

Instead, I will say this: Cosmology opens with two quotes. The first is a quote from Ray Bradbury about the legendary actor Lon Chaney, known for playing The Wolf Man. The second is an excerpt from The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. These quotes are masterfully chosen, simply because they perfectly set the tone of the novel.

The latter quote exemplifies the “fear of the unknown” that made Lovecraft, though a deeply problematic figure in literature, the powerhouse of horror that influenced nearly every writer in the genre to this day. It is the the eerie feeling of not fully understanding what is happening; the helplessness of an observer. Hamill executes this masterfully.

The first quote, however, is far more meaningful. It describes the effect that Lon Chaney had on audiences, not as a monster, but as a man tapping into the monster we fear is within each of us. It puts forward the notion that Lovecraft may have been wrong, that the greatest fear isn’t of the unknown, but rather a fear of oneself. Hamill certainly weaves a tale of Eldritch Horror that fits right in with the tales of Lovecraft, but where the book shines is not with the monsters, but with the people.

The central story of the novel revolves around two generations of the Turner family, and their creation: a scary Halloween attraction that comes to be known as The Wandering Dark. The protagonist, the youngest son of the family, narrates the tale as a chronicle of his history, and the story very much unfolds this way. Yes, there is horror. Yes, there are monsters, but at the heart of all of this is a compelling work of fiction about grief, mental illness, love, hardships, and family. Hamill’s shining achievement is not in creating a new mythos of dread, though he has certainly done that, it is in crafting a new piece of Eldritch Horror that is quite approachable and universal. I’m confident that anyone could read A Cosmology of Monsters and relate to it on some level, and that is truly rare for a book in this genre.

I loved this book. Anyone who has spoken to me knows this. It’s my favorite book of 2019 and possibly of the last few years. If you want to read something truly unique and special, and maybe even get a few scares too, come get a copy.

Shaun Hamill will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, September 18, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss A Cosmology of Monsters.

Author Q & A with Téa Obreht

By Guest Author

On September 8, 2019

In Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 8)

Téa Obreht’s sophomore novel Inland paints a stark picture of the brutal 19th century American West in a frontier tale that culminates with the meeting of two unlikely characters who give their all to the parched desert, the unforgiving land, and the never-ending drought of the Arizona Territory. A strong touch of mysticism and more than a few conversations with the dead add suspense and intense interest to the story.

Obreht’s internationally bestselling debut novel The Tiger’s Wife earned her the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, and her works have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, and others.

A native of Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia), Obreht now lives in New York with her husband, where she teaches at Hunter College.

Tell me about the “frontier story” your research uncovered that became the basis of the narrative of Inland.

Téa Obreht

Stuff You Missed in History Class, a podcast I absolutely adore, dedicated an episode to something called the Red Ghost. It centered a yarn about two Arizona women who have a disastrous encounter with a monster on their ranch, and went on to frame the incident in the context of the weird, side-lined true history of the Camel Corps, the military experiment which brought camels from the Ottoman empire to the American southwest in 1856.

I’d never heard of either the yarn or the history before, despite having researched regional history and folklore for quite some time, and was absolutely blown away by it–not only because even the weirdest part of this very weird story was apparently true, or because the idea of a camel among saguaros (cactus) presented such a compelling narrative challenge, but also because at the heart of the story were these real people, Hadji Ali and Greek George, who had traveled here from an empire which, at that time, also held the Balkans.

The brutal setting of Inland obviously shaped its characters. How does this setting really become a sort of “character” of its own story?

I think the setting’s most prominent “personality” trait, if you will, is its complete lack of investment in what stories do and don’t survive it. The prevailing and most dangerous myth of the West tells us that an individual’s triumph or a story’s survival are directly proportional to goodness and worth; that good people “make it” because they deserve to.

Nora and Lurie spend their respective storylines learning the falsehood of this mythology by watching–and frankly helping perpetrate–the breakdown of communities and individuals all around them. They are fearful of a similar fate and are working against the inevitable reality that they don’t matter to this landscape and that it is determined to forget them.

Main characters Nora, a homesteading wife and mother awaiting her husband’s return from a desperate trek to find water for the family; and Lurie, a fugitive running from the law, share the common trait of talking with the dead-and, for both, the “conversations” are with family members. You also used mysticism in your first novel, The Tiger’s Wife. Tell me about your interest in this phenomenon–and how it colors Inland.

I’m deeply fascinated by the trappings of belief–the way we reel between resisting mysticism and needing it. What I found additionally alluring about this period of American history was the clash of technology and spiritualism taking place from coast to coast, and how that would have shaped these characters’ perception of, and relationship to, the supernatural plane.

There’s Nora, who “talks” to her dead daughter, but insists she knows these conversations to be illusory, that the ghost is obviously just a figment of her imagination. And then there’s Lurie, for whom seeing the dead is a fact of life–albeit one from he derives no comfort because the spirits he encounters are the products of the violent, turbulent history in which he himself participates. His ghosts are people who suffered violence in death or burial, and he fears a similar fate might await him, and thus takes no solace in the confirmation of an afterlife.

Caught between them is Josie. She is Nora’s niece, a medium from New York, whom Nora derides terribly for the charlatanism of “pretending” to commune with the dead–through, of course, Nora is guilty of this kind of pretending, too.

Coming from different circumstances but sharing the urgent reality of a deadly drought, why would you say Lurie and Nora were “destined” to meet?

Because, by the time they meet in the book, despite all their recklessness and weaknesses, they are the only people in the entire world who can give each other what they need.

Do you already have plans for your next book–and can you give us some hints of what it will be about?

I still feel drawn to the West, and will no doubt write about it again down the line. But I think the next one might be a desert island book.

Téa Obreht will be at the Eudora Welty House on Thursday, September 12, at 5:00 to sign and read from Inland. Lemuria has selected Inland as one of its two September 2019 selections for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Small towns, big issues get help from touring author in Susan Cushman’s ‘Friends of the Library’

By Guest Author

On August 26, 2019

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

By Tracy Carr. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 25)

When Adele Covington hits the road for a book tour in some small Mississippi communities, it turns out she’s part author, part fairy godmother. The ten short stories in Susan Cushman’s Friends of the Library deal with big issues in small towns with heart and compassion.

Hosted by each site’s Friends of the Library, a non-profit advocacy group aimed at supporting public libraries through fundraising and promotion, Adele adapts her program to the group and, depending on their interests, discusses either her novel, which deals with a sexually abused graffiti artist, or her memoir, which details her experiences with her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.

If the descriptions of Adele’s books sound a bit familiar, there’s a reason for that: Cushman herself embarked on a book tour of Mississippi libraries, hosted by the Friends, where she discussed her novel, Cherry Bomb, which features a sexually abused graffiti artist, and her memoir, Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s. Friends of the Library is loosely based on Cushman’s real-life series of library programs, but with—presumably—a little more magic.

(By the way, there are 135 Friends of the Library groups in Mississippi. If you’re a library supporter and want to make a difference, join your local chapter!)

At each library, Adele meets someone who catches her eye. She strikes up a conversation, suggests a cup of coffee or lunch, and listens as the person unburdens their problems to her. Adele, who would be a busybody if she didn’t get great results, offers advice, connects people, and fixes their lives. Imagine if Touched by an Angel were set in Mississippi libraries.

Adele’s not fixing minor problems, either. The problems these folks have are serious: homelessness, alcoholism, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, eating disorders, and kidnapping, to name a few. Adele’s quick thinking, easygoing manner, and trustworthiness mean she’s able to offer big solutions to the big issues.

In Oxford, she meets Avery, a part-time library employee and full-time aspiring writer. He’s written a fantasy novel about a dystopian society where newborn babies are taken away from their parents and prominent families get to take their pick. The rest of the children grow up in warehouse orphanages, and later stage an uprising to find their birth parents.

Over coffee at Square Books, Adele listens to how closely Avery’s background and novel intersect and encourages him to enroll in a creative writing workshop, where he forms an immediate connection with a creative writing professor 20 years his senior. I won’t spoil things, but this book is all about happy endings.

The same goes for the homeless man in Eupora, the kidnapped girl in West Point, and the abused wife in Aberdeen: they all, with Adele’s help, find solid solutions to their life-threatening problems.

And that’s a good thing. Cushman doesn’t shy away from real-life issues, and while the way those issues are dealt with might be swift, it also gives us a little hope.

Do some of the problems wrap themselves up a little too neatly? Perhaps, but just as we don’t complain that a TV show’s conflict is resolved tidily at the end of each episode, we shouldn’t be bothered that Adele is always in the right place at the right time with the right words.

We could all use a little more sweetness and magic in our lives, and that’s what Friends of the Library delivers.

Tracy Carr is the Library Services Director at the Mississippi Library Commission in Jackson. She also serves as director of the Mississippi Center for the Book, and is a Mississippi Book Festival advisory board member.

Susan Cushman will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, August 27, at 5:00 to sign and discuss her novel, Friends of the Library.

Author Q & A with Karl Marlantes

By Guest Author

On August 11, 2019

In Fiction, Historical Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 11)

Karl Marlantes says his penchant for writing long novels comes naturally: he has much to tell through his stories and the undercurrents he masterfully weaves just below the surface.

His latest case in point is his second novel, Deep River, which fills more than 700 pages as it winds its way through the tale of three sibling Finnish immigrants in early 20th century America.

His award-winning debut novel, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, was a New York Times bestseller that also had much to say, as Marlantes draws on his own experiences as a highly decorated U.S. Marine during that conflict; and his autobiographical What It Is Like to Go to War explores his personal impressions on war.

An Oregon native, Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he now lives in rural Washington.

What influenced your interest in history (in general), and the specific time and location of Deep River, set in the Pacific Northwest from 1893 to 1932?

Karl Marlantes

I’ve always loved reading history. It provides great lessons for anyone who cares to think about what has gone on before. One of the quotes in my non-fiction book, What It Is Like to Go to War, is from Otto von Bismarck: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” That time period was also interesting to me because it was, in my opinion, the time of most dramatic change. My grandmother went from no electricity, no running water, horses and buggies, to freeways and landing on the moon. The question of how to adapt in a human and loving way to changing technology is still with us, and still inadequately answered.

The book chronicles the saga of two brothers and a sister who are forced to leave their farming life in Finland and migrate to a logging and fishing community in Washington state to escape the harsh Russian occupation of their homeland. The siblings come to America with differing dreams and personalities: there is Aino, the activist who was introduced to socialism at age 13 by her teacher; Ilmari, a blacksmith with dreams of church building; and Matti, the fortune-seeker. Tell us briefly about each of these characters, and their ultimate roles in the novel.

All of us adopt a stance toward life, based on such things as character, aptitude, and what happened to us as we were growing up. Kierkegaard refers to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. These stances are how we deal with such imponderables as our own death and destiny.

Aino is an atheist–she firmly believes no one is coming to help, so we must build heaven on earth, in her case through communism and then the IWW (International Workers of the World). Her brother Matti learns early that rich people suffer much less than poor people. He is like many Americans who think we can just take out an insurance policy against mortality by driving virtually indestructible SUVs to soccer games. Ilmari is traditionally religious. There is a heaven, and we’ll all get there, but in the meanwhile, there are some serious unanswered questions, like why some children suffer and go to heaven just like the ones who don’t. He moves from traditional Christianity to an amalgam of Christianity and mysticism, which has been my own spiritual journey.

The characters are also highly influenced by their counterparts in The Kalevala. Aino who refuses marriage to an older man through suicide; Matti, hot-headed Lemminkäinen; Ilmari, the powerful blacksmith; Ilmarinen, who forged the magic sampo, the mill that grinds out eternal bounty; and Jouka, who echoes Joukahainen, the celebrated minstrel.

Explain “sisu” and its importance in the lives of the characters in Deep River.

Sisu is what won The Winter War of 1939 against the overwhelming might of the Russian army. As a child, if I fell and hurt myself and even started to whimper, my mother or grandmother would ask, “Where’s your sisu?” I would find it and not whimper. It’s courage, stubbornness, stoicism, many such traits combined and very hard to define.

In the lives of my characters, it is a major force in surviving, getting done what must be done to put food on the table, standing up against odds that any reasonable person would run from. Sisu is not reasonable. And, as Vasutäti points out, it is not always applicable.

Along with your debut book Matterhorn, you are developing a reputation for lengthy, robust narratives that fully develop your characters, their timelines and their settings–and both are packed with historical details and sweeping landscapes. Did you set out to produce epic works (that would rise so quickly to bestseller status), or did your stories just work themselves out to be generous volumes?

I swear I’ll correct that image with my next novel, but then again, stories tend to just keep happening to me while I’m writing. I never set out to write epic works. I do know, however, that among my favorite novels are War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov, all hefty volumes. As a reader, I like to get into a world, and if the writing is good, feel disappointed when I leave it. So, in that respect, long novels are good. I am also much taken by true epics, the “Táin Bó Cúailnge” of the Irish, the “Song of Roland” of the French, “The Iliad and Odyssey” of the ancient Greeks, “The Aeneid of the Romans,” and “The Kalevala of the Finns.”

Many reviews note that Deep River is, in part, somewhat of a comment on today’s political state in America. Could you address that?

The two major protagonists, Aksel and Aino, are almost allegorical figures for this tension in American political life between the collective and the individual. We seesaw between the two, The Great Society followed by Ronald Reagan. The Roaring Twenties followed by The New Deal.

Aksel and Aino both learn that they need each other to make it through life. It’s called compromise, something we have lost in today’s political scene. There are many parallels between the time of the novel and now, not even remotely allegorical: wars being fought that involved no immediate threat to our own security, opposition to those wars being characterized as unpatriotic, giving up individual privacy and freedom to the Espionage Act of 1917, which was sold to protect us from “bolshevism” and used to crush the IWW in the name of national security, and the Patriot Act of today, which was sold to protect us from terrorists and justified by the same reasoning, horrible income inequality, the struggle to make a living wage, the unconscious destruction of our natural environment, the problems associated with immigration, false stories in biased newspapers, all compounded by a feckless federal government.

Karl Marlantes will be at the Lemuria on Wednesday, August 14, at 5:00 to sign and read from Deep River. Lemuria has selected Deep River as its August 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

* * *

Marlantes will also appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 in coversation with Tom Franklin and Kevin Powers at 12:00 p.m. at State Capitol Room 113.

Author Q & A with Lisa Howorth

By Guest Author

On August 4, 2019

In Fiction, Southern Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 4)

Oxford’s Lisa Howorth combines a humorous twist with the looming realities of an America on the cusp of the 1960s in her sophomore novel, Summerlings.
Set in 1959 and narrated by 8-year-old John, the story centers around the boy’s world during a summer he would never forget: at once a carefree season spent planning shenanigans with his friends, but living with his grandparents and missing his parents, longing to make his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., a more friendly place to live, and surviving an unexplainable spider infestation that has taken over his town.

Lisa Howorth

Howorth’s narrative makes a case for more than a few obvious comparisons of the America of 60 years ago with today’s social and political climate–with a bit of nostalgia thrown in.

The Washington, D.C. native and former librarian is also the author of the novel Flying Shoes, as well as stories about art, travel, dogs and music that have appeared in the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, and other publications.

Howorth and husband Richard are the founders of Square Books in Oxford.

Summerlings packs a lot of grown-up worries into a heartfelt story about the summer of 1959 for close childhood friends and neighbors growing up in Washington, D.C. There are social and political alignments left over from World War II, the heartbreak of divorce–in a time when it was an anomaly–and the Cold War that reinforced suspicions of neighbors against each other. Since you grew up in Washington, D.C., does the setting of this story align itself with your own memories and feelings about that time and place?

Yes–absolutely! The fictional setting of Summerlings is very similar to the ‘hood of my early childhood–Chevy Chase at the District line. It didn’t really occur to me until late in life that mine was an intriguing and unusual neighborhood; typical for D.C., but for nowhere else. To us kids, of course, it was just our ‘hood, and the Washington we knew.

The story is narrated main character John, who, at 8, has his hands full with his parents’ divorce, his mother’s extended hospital stays for what he is told is a case of tuberculosis, a neighborhood bully, a spider plague of Biblical proportions, and a plan to make his neighborhood a friendlier place. As played out with his best friends Ivan, Max, and Beatriz, John’s assessments of his day-to-day challenges often reveal a degree of wisdom beyond his years, always tempered by the judgment of a child. In many ways, the story reminds us that each generation faces its own share of grave problems. What is it about John that reveals his resilience despite his problems?

The story is narrated by John as an adult looking back. As an 8-year-old, he does have a degree of wisdom beyond his years, as traumatized children do. Also like such children, he’s resilient, because what choice do kids have? John understands that his world is shaped by the incomprehensible–and sometimes cruel–actions of adults, but he has no power and must navigate the best he can, resigned to his belief that “the world is the weirdest place on earth.”

There is a fleeting scene in the story in which John’s mother is home for a brief visit, and the family sits down for dinner. He calls it “heartwarming,” and says “I was content. We were like a normal family.” Why was this such an important experience for him?

John is bereft of both parents and he longs for them, especially his mom. When she briefly returns from St. Elizabeth’s, he’s so happy, reveling in her attention and love, and hoping her “TB” is cured. And most kids want stability and normalcy–whatever that is–in their family life, and he’s able to briefly feel that. Unfortunately, as you say, his comfort is fleeting, not even lasting through their crab cake dinner.

The spider plague of that summer was like no other, and was a great equalizer that ensured a common suffering among the city’s residents – and even IT carried political suspicions. Explain the spider plague for readers.

I created the spider plague because I thought it would be fun to capture the goofiness of kids with their collecting obsessions, and would also make the adults seem a little ridiculous with their own obsessions in the Cold War years: the plague must be another plot by the Soviets to “bury” us, as Khrushchev famously said.

Also, I love writing about the natural world in a place, and I’m crazy about E.O. Wilson’s memoir, Naturalist, particularly about his Alabama childhood collecting bugs. By the way, Wilson’s mentor was Marion R. Smith, a myrmecologist (a scientist who studies ants) who worked in Mississippi and D.C. and has a cameo in Summerlings.

John laments late in the story that children are constantly being told, “You’ll understand when you’re older,” yet they are faced with problems they must process at the moment. In what ways does this entire story, which took place 60 years ago, remind us that some things never change–and what can we learn from that?

Well, I think I make it clear that the issues of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s resonate strongly today, most obviously the ongoing concern with Russia. When I began writing this book, I didn’t really set out to make this a strong theme, but the more I researched, the more I found: 60 years ago, Khrushchev vowed publicly to interfere in our elections, they were poisoning people, refugees were being turned back from the U.S., and we all feared Communism and nuclear war.

But there’s also, I think, a way to see things positively: things appear to be terrible, but we do come through. At least so far! And on a lighter note, it was fun to write about how exciting and pervasive the music and films of the ‘50s were, too–we still cherish all that, remembering the iconic lyrics and scenes. The good things also last.

Lisa Howorth will be at the Eudora Welty House on Wednesday, August 7, at 5:00 to sign and read from Summerlings. Lemuria has selected Summerlings as its July 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

* * *

Howorth will also appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Southern Fiction” panel at 2:45 p.m. at the Galloway Fellowship Center.

Debut novel ‘The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna’ proves perfect immersion for summer

By Guest Author

On August 1, 2019

In Fiction

By Valerie Walley. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 28)

When I began reading about Stella Fortuna, I had no idea I would be swept up on an encompassing journey with such an incredible woman. This debut novel from Juliet Grames, whose full title is The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, quickly became unputdownable, and it’s one of my favorite books of 2019. Fittingly Ms. Grames will be appearing at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17th at 10:45 AM on the Best Novels of 2019 Panel along with Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of We Cast a Shadow.

Based loosely on the author’s own family story, the novel begins in early 19th century Italy. Stella is born in the mountains of Calabria. She’s the second Stella, her older sister bearing the same name, perished in infancy before Stella Fortuna was born. This death, and the spirit of the first Stella, haunt her throughout her life. Stella’s childhood is full of events that endanger her life but are somehow miraculously survivable. She is dedicated early on to her mother and siblings, but not to her father who abandons the family to a life of poverty when he immigrates to America.

As Stella grows up, she experiences many difficulties which make her stronger and wiser but lead her to clash—to say the least—with injustices and the patriarchal society that she is born into. Eventually, Stella and her family make the journey to join their father in America, a reunion that does not bode well for Stella, and has tragic implications for future generations of the family.

Stella is beautiful, intelligent, and she uses her traits and personality to develop the toughness that she needs to protect and provide for the ones she loves, especially her younger sister. She is an invincible soul so determined and sure of herself that over the course of this novel she overcomes events that could easily have killed her or maimed her indomitable spirit. This is a book that cuts to the core of what it means to struggle in a new place, to fight for a family you love, and to understand the wells of strength that when tested, we learn, lie within us all.

The writing is so good and the book flows along seamlessly revealing a mastery of storytelling, sense of place, a touch of magical realism, and unforgettable characters that you will love and hate.

In these hottest days of Mississippi summer, I urge you to pick up Stella and immerse yourself. This is a book worth getting lost in.

Besides writing this amazing first novel, Juliet Grames is also Associate Publisher of Soho Press, one of the premier literary independent presses in the country, also specializing in young adult and the mystery genres.

Valerie Walley is Field Sales Director for Penguin Random House and a Ridgeland resident.

Juliet Grames will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Best Debut Novels of 2019” panel at 10:45 a.m. in State Capitol Room 113 and the “All About Soho Press” panel at 2:45 p.m. in State Capitol Room 201 H.

Author Q & A with Juliet Grames

By Guest Author

On July 21, 2019

In Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 21)

“Author” is a new title for Juliet Grames, associate publisher and curator of the Solo Crime imprint for HarperCollins. With the publishing of her debut novel The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, Grames joins the ranks of the hundreds of writers whose works she has helped become real books.

Growing up in a tight-knit Italian family living in Connecticut, Grames loosely borrows from some of her own experiences as she shares the tale of the indomitable Stella Fortuna, who gave birth to 11 children even as she lived through at least seven–maybe eight–near-death experiences.

Grames is looking forward to her appearance at the Mississippi Book Festival in downtown Jackson Aug. 17.

“I had the great good fortune of visiting Jackson in January 2018 and was profoundly moved by everything I saw and experienced, but especially by the literary culture of the city,” she said. “I am so honored and grateful to have been invited to the festival and to have the opportunity to be a tiny part of that rich literary culture.”

Since this is your debut book, please share a bit about your background.

Juliet Grames

I was born in Hartford, Conn., and grew up in the Farmington Valley. I knew I wanted to write books since I was a little girl–actually, my first attempt at a novel, when I was 6, was a story inspired by my grandmother, just like Stella Fortuna was. I’ve spent my entire career working with literature. My first job was at the public library, then I spent four years working at my hometown’s Borders Books, then a year at a literary agency before getting my start in book publishing editorial at places like John Wiley & Sons and The Overlook Press. But secretly I’m actually a devout amateur historian. I was a history major at Columbia, and spent a year studying history at Oxford.

As a book editor who has worked for Soho the past decade, you now hold the position of associate publisher and curator of the Soho Crime imprint. How does it feel to be on this “other side” of publishing? Was writing a book always part of your career dreams?

I originally got into publishing because I thought it would help me toward a writing career. For years, it seemed this plan had catastrophically failed, and I advised aspiring publishing professionals not to get into editorial if they wanted to write, because they would never be able to find bandwidth to nurture their own creative voice. But in the end, it wasn’t such a bad plan. Soho Press is a wonderful institution that has allowed me, and others, to pursue creative endeavors, and I believe my editorial training really helped me make my own novel into the best thing it could be.

This story is partly based on experiences in your own Italian-American family. Can you tell us a little about that?

The novel follows a girl born in Calabria, Italy, in the years after World War I through her childhood in a poor mountain village, emigration to the U.S. on the eve of World War II, courtship, family drama, and eight near-death experiences. It was inspired by my grandmother, a larger-than-life character and storyteller.

My grandparents emigrated from southern Italy in the 1930s and settled in Hartford, Conn. I grew up steeped in their culture–the food, the dialects, the storytelling, the music, the horticulture–and very proud of my immigrant roots. As I got older, I tried to find histories and literature about the Italian South so I could learn more, but was frustrated by how little there is. One reason I wanted to write this book was to try to capture the fascinating world of southern Italy, where so many Italian-Americans’ ancestors originated.

The story begins with Stella’s parents’ history and extends to Stella’s life at age 100. Along the way, readers we learn about Stella’s multiple brushes with death, raising her large family and her lifelong longing for her own independence. Please tell us briefly about these struggles that define her life.

Stella Fortuna’s eight near-deaths are the one piece of the plot I took wholly from reality. My grandmother had very similar misadventures over the course of her long life–experiences, I realized, which laid the groundwork for an allegory about how dangerous independence and self-actualization could be for women like my grandmother, like Stella, born into reduced circumstances in pre-war southern Italy, where women were not even citizens.

Life was especially dangerous when these women took risks to better their situations–to educate themselves or their children, to be ambitious about accruing money or property, to stand up to their controlling or abusive fathers or husbands. Stella struggles her entire life against the identity her world wants her to embrace–obedient wife and mother. Her stubborn independence and fierce sense of self never allow her to compromise, even when her resistance nearly cost her her life.

Even though Stella and her family moved to America when she was 19 years old, she never got over missing the Italian village of her childhood. How does that drive her outlook and expectations of a better life?

Stella is typical of many Italian emigrants of the first half of the 20th century in that she is deeply ambivalent about having to leave Italy. The tragedy of poverty and colonial exploitation meant that there were few work opportunities in places like Calabria, and people traveled thousands of miles to work abroad so they could feed their families. Many of the millions of Italians who arrived in the United States between 1900 and 1925 continued to think of Italy as home and intended to return there.

During my research, I found two very poignant forms of nostalgia at this great wave of migration: first, Italian-Americans like Stella and many other characters who never stopped loving and missing Italy; and second, in Italy, the descendants of the Italians who remained in towns that were emptied out by emigration, who feel kinship for the American cousins they never had a chance to meet.

In the end, the narrator tells readers that Stella was “not a woman of her time,” and that she was had “incredible will and strength, of charisma, of innate intelligence.” What can we learn from this tale today?

My main hope is that readers will walk away from the novel asking themselves about the lives and reputations of the “difficult” women who might have come before them–mothers or aunts or grandmothers of Stella’s generation who sometimes had to go to extreme or even ugly lengths to survive the hard years of the 20th century and to keep their families together. I believe our foremothers’ legacies are worth revisiting, and that when we question why these women were so “difficult,” we often find them to have been more heroic and multi-faceted than we could have guessed.

Category: Fiction (Page 2 of 54)

The secret is out on ‘The Secrets We Kept’ by Lara Prescott

Pulitzer prize winner Elizabeth Strout revisits popular character in new book, ‘Olive, Again’

Author Q & A with Shaun Hamill

Familial Fright: ‘A Cosmology of Monsters’ by Shaun Hamill

Author Q & A with Téa Obreht

Small towns, big issues get help from touring author in Susan Cushman’s ‘Friends of the Library’

Author Q & A with Karl Marlantes

Author Q & A with Lisa Howorth

Debut novel ‘The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna’ proves perfect immersion for summer

Author Q & A with Juliet Grames

Authors

Categories

Tags