“Maybe
she had a whole clatter of men to look at, and misremembered you Jamie. That’s
just what you could be – the misremembered man – and she’s sittin’ at the phone
waitin’ on you to ring and wonderin’ what’s goin’ on.”
18 Bookers arrived on a cloudy, misty
day at the home of Bonnie Magee, co-hosted by Leslie Mullins. It was impossible
not to imagine a bagpipe’s mournful sound, or leprechauns, shamrocks, and
rainbows. We were in Ireland without having to use any frequent flyer miles.
Credit for this backdrop to our book choice goes to a much higher power. And,
our lake might rise if the sky continues to open.
Bookers met a week past our regular
second Tuesday slot as not to conflict with our highly successful PWC garage
sale. A round of applause for everyone who dug into plastic trash bags and
cardboard boxes, shelved shoes and books, displayed and priced everything from
sewing machines to refrigerators, and “held” everything for our shoppers. Kudos
to the lifters, the haulers, and the decorators; to those who set us up and
took us down; and to those who made us feel safe and secure (rumor has it there
were several red level security threats in the children’s area requiring covert
surveillance monitoring.) Those clad in neon vests armed with flashlights kept
everyone moving and the greeters who provided our customers with shopping bags might
headline in a comedy club or at least entertain a captive audience. We thank
those working in the heart and “bowels” of the command center, and our checkout
crews who kept our customers happy. We so appreciate co-chairs, Jean Alexander
and Rebecca Brisendine, who lubricated the wheels making the event a success
for the PWC and more importantly, the lake-area community. Great job.
The author of Misremembered Man,
Christina McKenna, is a painter by trade and that visualization skill extended
into the writing of her debut novel. With each brush stroke, she undercoated
the story with imagery, well-defined characters, and a parallel plot line
leaving us reveling in the mastery of her language.
Barbara Creach did a suburb job of reviewing this
wonderful book. We all appreciate the research and attention to detail in
walking us through this well-constructed novel with two separate stories
commingling effortlessly with the other, finally crossing paths at the climax
of the book. Barbara’s respect and love for this book was on display for all of
us to enjoy. Bravo!
One story focuses on two lonely hearts seeking the
solace of companionship. Forty-one year old, Jamie McCloone, at the age of ten
and one-half months, arrived on the steps of St. Agnes Little Sisters of
Charity convent, Derry County, Ireland alongside his newborn sister –
abandoned, wrapped in paper, and inside a shopping bag. His adult life consisted
of battling demons of neglect and cruelty above and below the surface. Between
his “uneven ears, farmer’s dress, a comb-over, a long nose, morose mouth and
blameless green eyes, the deep scar running from under his right eye to his
jawline” graphically told of a broken man, one who “possessed a thousand petty
deferments.” Lydia Devine, an unmarried forty-year old schoolteacher, longed to
escape her daily caretaking duties for her “plucky” seventy-six year old mother
who resembled a “geriatric doll.” She loved reading novels, taking long walks,
and writing letters, and everything in her life had a proper order. In the
mirror, Lydia’s nose was “too long, her mouth and eyes too small, cheeks too
red and a deepening crease was forming between her eyebrows.” Her childhood was
stifled by a strict Presbyterian father who preached the fourth commandment of
honoring your parents forever and always. Loyalty was second nature to Lydia as
she faced daily life within the constraints of the walls of her home. They
seemed mismatched but both lonely hearts yearned to “see all the way to the
sunlit clearing to that hallowed place where the future hadn’t shaped itself
yet.”
The second storyline, told in alternating chapters,
focused on Jamie’s life, or non-life, inside the walls of the orphanage. He
suffered brutality at the hands of the Catholic “holy order” in charge of
managing a “home” for ninety-six boys, all under the age of ten. The boys were
products of “sin” and “didn’t they deserve all they got,” never experiencing
freedom from fear. All the residents including Eighty-Six, as Jamie was known
within these walls, suffered the type of mental, physical, and sexual abuse no
one should endure. Escaping unabridged seemed unattainable until Jamie’s
emancipation arrived in the form of two loving “parents” who adopted, named,
nurtured, and gave him a life he never dreamed of because he didn’t know such a
life existed. He became James Kevin Barry Michael and “his identity lay in the
dirt others left behind and his salvation lay in cleaning it up.”
The side-by-side plots ran throughout the novel,
escalating to the ending, then scissortailing the stories into a package of
warmth and totality. One reviewer said, “If you want to know how to write a
book, read this one.”
Our discussion centered on the orphanage abuse, how
not all facilities should not be lumped together as the norm, but it only takes
one to exist, as in this book, to shed light on the immorality and inhumanity
the residents endured. It’s especially poignant when it is a religious based facility,
as it seems to fly in the face of what is being preached. Whose standards are
we to follow if the leaders of our faith abuse the very founding principles of
their religion? We all agreed the chapters outlining Jamie’s life at the
orphanage were excruciating to read and festered hatred for the individuals
involved in his treatment. We discussed the need for supervision and openness
in the foster care system with more accountability and attention paid to the
rules and regulations governing these agencies. We also talked about the
characters so vividly portrayed by the author. Each had a unique voice and
complemented the story with that individuality. Rose seemed to be one of the
favorites – with her humor, tenderness, and Rose to the rescue attitude –
prompting the question to the group: Who is your Rose? We talked about
Jamie’s joy when he played the accordion…people paid attention, he
mattered…this was the “instrument that allowed him to speak another language
from his tortured silent self.” Some felt Lydia’s mother dying at the exact
time she was meeting Jamie was unnecessary, others felt it added to the plot in
a way of providing the reason Lydia didn’t follow up with Jamie. The author
describes it as a “divine bargain.” Several rooted for Paddy to hurry up and
save Jamie but were disappointed that after the story unfolded the novel
ended…they wanted perhaps a nice “family dinner” added.
We asked what book would you say stands out of all
the ones we have read in the past ten years. The overwhelming choice was The
Book Thief, followed by Cutting For Stone, and Roses.
Others mentioned, Pillars of the Earth, Rules of Civility, The Glass Castle, Those Who
Save Us, Unbroken, Art of Racing In the Rain, Caleb’s Crossing, Plain Truth,
Little Bee and Room. Per request, attached are the
lists of all our books for the past nine years, including a short synopsis of
each, excluding Year 10, a.k.a, Books of Consequence, which is in progress.
On the business side
Hollywood
producer, Robert Shapiro, has optioned Misremembered Man. Jeremy Irons
will make his directorial debut in the film.
Bonnie
Magee reports the movie version of The Book Thief will hit the big
screen in November.
Melba
has found a new web site that offers free downloads for both Kindle and Nook, www.bookbub.com. Provide your
e-mail address, fill out a short book preference sheet, and they send you a
daily e-mail with the offerings.
Book Talk
Lee
Durso has read the first two books in Ken Follett’s Century trilogy (author of Pillars
of the Earth) beginning with The
Fall of Giants, followed by Winter
of the World. The third, Edge of Eternity will be released September,
2014. They are historical fictions beginning prior to World War 1, giving the
reader a chronological refresher of history with good characters and a serious
reminder how history continues to repeat itself.
I
got an e-mail from Pat Conroy while in Charleston, not touting his own book,
but one his wife, Cassandra King, wrote. She has written The Sunday Wife and The
Same Sweet Girls (which MN read and liked) and her latest, Moonrise
is a modernized tale of du Maurier’s Rebecca. He wrote, it is “a fabulous
novel and my damn wife wrote it.” MN’s sister, Pam, read it and was cool to
lukewarm. Conroy’s latest, a non-fiction, The Death of Santini, will hit the
stores October 29th.
The
Best American Short Stories 2013 is a compilation of twenty short
stories, edited by Elizabeth Strout.
Roses
and
Tumbleweed
author, Leila Meacham, will release Somerset, February 2014. It’s over
six hundred pages and spans one hundred and fifty years of Roses’ Toliver, Warwick,
and DuMont families beginning in the antebellum South on Plantation Alley in
South Carolina where Silas Toliver, deprived of his inheritance, joins up with
his best friend, Jeremy Warwick, to plan a wagon train expedition to a new
territory called Texas.
Speaking
of settings in Texas, Kathleen Kent’s new novel, The Outcasts, is set in
the nineteenth century on the Gulf Coast. I attended her book signing in Dallas
and was again impressed with her presence, storytelling, and genuine passion
for her characters. Although I’ve just started, it might be one to consider for
Bookers. I’ll keep you posted. She will be participating in a live author chat
on Tuesday, October 22nd, 8:00 P.M. EST. Go to www.bookmovement.com to listen to
her discuss this book. (No special login is required)
Also in my pile, Barbara Delinsky’s, Sweet
Salt Air. Best friends spent summers together and now reunite back at
the island house on the coast of Maine. One is a travel writer, the other a
food blogger and they are collaborating on a new project. The Matchstick Cross, by
Laurie Parker, is a debut novel by an award winning children’s book author
about a New York based interior designer returning home to Mississippi to clear
out a storage unit from her recently deceased mother’s attic. The
Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea, twenty years in the
making, is a true story of his great-aunt, set in 1873 in the republic of
Mexico. A Widow For One Year by John Irving is a multilayered love
story following the protagonist through three of the most pivotal times in her
life. Also, lingering on my Kindle, The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver’s
first novel about a Kentucky native while escaping her roots inherits a three
year old native-American little girl named Turtle. Don’t Let Me Go by
Catherine Ryan Hyde is about a former Broadway dancer and current agoraphobic
who hasn’t set a foot outside his apartment in almost ten years and his
neighbors including nine-year old Grace and her former addict mother. Long
Time Coming by Edie Claire, was a free download, a romantic suspense
novel set in a small Kentucky town. Eighteen years have passed since the
protagonist’s childhood friend was killed in a car accident a few days prior to
their senior prom. She returns home because of her father’s illness to find
neither distance nor time has reconciled her grief.
MN
is reading The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty, which unfolds from the
third person perspectives of three women. At first glance, their connection is
peripheral, but the secret Jon-Paul is keeping for decades will change all of
them. Another one that might be “ours.”
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
November 12th: The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
PINK
Home
of Daryl Daniels
Reviewer: Pat Faherty
December 10th: Ordinary Grace by William Kent
Krueger
PINK
Home of Jean Alexander
Reviewer: Melba
Holt
Food
Czar Bonnie Magee will coordinate light fare & champagne
January 14, 2014 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
PINK
Home
of Beverly Dossett
Reviewer:
Melanie Prebis
February 11th: The Fault In Our Stars by
John Green
RED
Home
of Patty Evans
Reviewer:
Patty Evans
March 11th: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold
Fry by Rachel Joyce
PINK
Home
of Marlene Ungarean
Reviewer:
Jean McSpadden
April 8th: Book TBA
Home
of Sandy Molander
May 13th: Book TBA – regular meeting
10:00 AM
Home
of Charlotte Pechacek
The image of friendship is a poignant
example of Celtic wisdom that transcends the ages. Spiritual tradition teaches
that the human soul hovers around a body like a vigilant halo. Anam Cara, which
means soul friend, is what results when two souls flow together – when kindred
spirits find each other. Once the friendship is awakened between two people, it
cannot be broken by time or space. Anam Cara accepts you for who you are, and
in doing so, helps you give birth to your own soul.
Happy Reading fellow Anam Caras,
JoDee
