Speaking of Which…

… That ability for nuanced writing, for creating characters who are at once terrifying and engaging, is one of the things that I particularly respect about Brenda Peterson. The mother in “Duck and Cover” is clearly erratic (she almost reads like a manic/depressive) and frequently abusive, but she’s also got an undeniable charm.

The ability to hold both sides of a character clearly in view is not easy in a book, any more than it’s easy in life. One of the challenges in dealing with my dad’s death was moving beyond the point where I wished he had either been all good dad or all monster to understanding the the reality of him was that he was both.

Her depiction of the father as a husband and father who deals with his wife’s excesses not by curbing them and protecting their children but by escaping into his work is likewise familiar.

A dangerous parent can only survive with a partner who denies the reality of what’s happening, or who actively joins in the abuse. One of the truths that this book holds is that it is not enough to simply be kind and loving if one finds one’s self in an abusive relationship. Good parenting sometimes requires hard actions. Sometimes it means apparently betraying a spouse who might in some ways be a good and wonderful person. It is not simple.

Anyone who has experienced a reality like that will recognize if not details, certainly outlines, in the parents in “Duck and Cover.”

Finding the big picture

I write books. I write a lot of books, and I write them at the same time. I do this because I’m a storyteller, and because I use writing as a way of escaping to another place, time, and life. And all that’s great–but it really doesn’t result in good books.

This is because while I am a storyteller, I tend to get lost in minutia. My readers might enjoy my storytelling, but they tend to have a hard time following the big story–the overarching narrative that ties all the little stories together, and makes them more together than they are apart.

A few days ago I posted a request for people to weigh in on which of my current writing projects they’d like me to focus on next. The answers were pretty much divided, but then fate took a hand. A book I’m typesetting about helping loved ones who are facing death included a passage on the importance of “both/and” thinking, rather than “either/or” thinking.

The writer explained that it was particularly important in circumstances where “ambiguous death” was involved–missing persons, Alzheimer’s patients, and as in my case, where my father’s terminal illness brought up a whole scorpions’ nest of emotions, memories, and history. His death was incredibly complex, and I found myself wishing for the false simplicity of an either/or answer to the questions he left behind.

It should come as no surprise that I’ve been weighing those days, and I’ve come to see that the question of whether we would be either/or people or both/and people really was the defining question we faced. How we answered that question is what determined how those terrible days played out.

Recognizing this has given me something I never have had before–a clear theme for a book, one that governs every aspect of how I will put this book together. I have the stories–lots of them–but I’ll be retelling them, editing, shaping, and pruning to explore that central, vital question the manner of Dad’s death posed for us–would we be either/or people, or both/and people?

Premature Review: Duck and Cover!

True Confession: I’ve had Brenda Peterson’s book Duck and Cover! on my Kindle for months–actually, I had the book before I had the Kindle. She gave me a Kindle copy as a “thank you” for tweaking her book cover a bit. So I had the book and for some reason I just never got it opened. Well, I finally did this afternoon as I was waiting for The Boy to drag himself out of the weight room after his “Burst and Explode” or some such thing training–it’s supposed to keep him toned and ready for football practice this summer, which will keep him toned and ready for the football season, which is a mere–what?–ten months away? ish? Around here we take our football very, very seriously, even though we win surprisingly seldom for all the work we put into it.

Anyhow, there I am outside the weight room with only my Kindle for company, and I’m housecleaning on it, taking off the read books, and the moron tests The Boy loaded on and insisted I take (I failed both of them), and wondering what I should read next when there, buried behind the second moron test, was Duck and Cover!

It seemed appropriate after the weekend we just had–snow and freezing rain enough to shut down school for two days–so I opened it up and by the bottom of the first page I was remembering why I loved I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here On Earth, the first book of Peterson’s that I read. It’s her voice. Her writer’s voice, I mean.

She writes lovely, tight, evocative prose full of hidden shadows and deft humor that grows not out of facile word plays but out of idea plays. And she can capture a character in dialog like nobody’s business. Take, for example, her comment that the Virgin Mary was merely “God’s vehicle” to get Jesus into the world. The speaker then goes on to note that she considers her own red Dart God’s vehicle as well, but she certainly doesn’t get all offended if someone speaks of it in disrespectful terms.

There’s more. There’s much, much more, and I’m only into the third chapter. If you love good writing, read Brenda Peterson. Start with Duck and Cover! You can get it here. I’ll do a full review later, but you should go grab a copy of your own. You really, really should.

Down on the Farm

I’ve been noodling around about what I’d like to publish next. I’ve got a bazillion books (approximate figure only) partway done, but none of them is exactly jumping up and down and screaming, “Pick me, pick me,” at the moment. What to do…what do do…

I thought it might be helpful to get some outside viewpoints. Namely, yours, gentle readers. So here are my choices, along with the pros and cons of each. Weigh in, won’t you, and let me know which you think is my next best book?

1. Down on the Farm: A collection of short stories about women on farms. We have Maggie, a young mother who lives on a dairy farm until one day, when it all goes horribly wrong. We have some the story of Casanova, my sister, and me. We have the story of the birds in the strawstack, and what happened to them. We have the story of the Water Witch. We have the story of baling in the early morning. These are stories and mood pieces which capture a bit of the flavor of ranch life through the eyes of women.

2. Seeing Daddy Out: A memoir of a year in my life, when I had to face the reality of my dad’s death when I had yet to come to terms with his life. It’s a book about loving, and losing, and betrayal, learning to be on my own, and ultimately, finding my way back to loving. A lot happened that year.

3. The Rosemont Car: My grandfather’s life, as I knew it through the lens of his stories–and through his love and acceptance. So far this is written like a play to be read, but it could be converted.

4. A sequel to Good On Paper: This centers on a new character, who buys the family farm and sort of inherits DJ, now that Jennifer’s in the pokey.

5. A gigantic, amorphous, untitled work that can’t decide if it wants to be horror, fantasy, steampunk, erotica, or what. What I’d need to do with this is pick one thread and develop it–I’ve got some nice kid stuff in there.

6. A middle reader fantasy about a girl (Jane Gray) who is so far a fun read–her family is far from ideal, but she just takes it in stride and fights back.

Throughout the next couple weeks, I’ll post up snippets of each, so you can judge fairly.