Reading not writing

Well, this past week has been an odd one; my recent sensitivity to light has kept me away from the computer screen so, I have focused on reading in dimly-lit rooms. Latent vapirism, perhaps?


Anyway, over the past couple of weeks, I've read Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx, The Birth House by Ami McKay, Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill, Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott, and Kit's Law by Donna Morrisey. Oh, and Coal Run by Tawni O'Dell.

The Birth House, Kit's Law and Bad Dirt topped my list of favourites

I love that Annie Proulx has been able to capture the essence of her two homes, as disparate as they are -- Newfoundland and Wyoming. Bad Dirt is a compilation of short stories about the West that tell of the humour and the trials that occur when past meets present. She's terrific at dialogue and description.

Donna Morrisey is a wonderful story-teller. Although I wasn't keen on the ending, I loved her ability to help me see and feel what a 1950's outport in Newfoundland was like. Here's how the book opens.

"If you were to perch on a treetop and look down on Fox Cove, you would see a gully, about twenty feet across and with a brook gurgling down its spine to the seashore below and flanked on either side by a sea of rippling grass, cresting with Queen Anne's lace, and scented with a brew of burning birch, wet ground and kelp.

To the right of the gully, and about a hundred yards down from a dirt road, is a grey, weather-beaten house, its windows opened to the sea, and its walls slanted back, as if beaten into the hillside by the easterly winds gusting off the Atlantic and whistling up the gully's channel...

Anyone who has experienced the wicked wind of the East Coast will have no trouble envisioning this place or house. Ms. Morrisey gives the three women who live there strong, individual voices, never muddying them or compromising their characters.

In my opinion, Coal Run didn't live up to Ms. O'Dell's Back Roads. The plot and dialogue were forced and somewhat disjointed. The protagonist's every thought, no matter how banal, is detailed and the characters don't stay true to themselves.

Lullabies for Little Criminals is writing in the voice of a young girl raised by her drug-addicted father. The girl's voice is rather detached, a good approach for telling about the horrors of her life. Despite my difficulty with the gritty subject matter -- it makes me feel pretty dreadful -- this is a book worth reading. O'Neill's prose rings true.

I have mixed feelings about Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe. There are inconsistencies to her writing. For example, she states that she likes the longer evenings of fall, then on the next page decries the dark. A reader may be able to relate to the protagonist's inner turmoil (divorce, aging parent, confused kids) but it's hard to jump from her being hyper-critical of her boyfriend to agreeing to marry him, again, within a page of text. However, Lamott certainly covers inner dialogue and conflict well.

Last on the list is Ami McKay's Birth House. This was a hard one to find as it has been flying off the bookshelves and is currently short-listed for an Atlantic Book Award. The protagonist, Dora Rare has a great story to tell about social mores, patriarchy and women's rights. The book is terrific and McKay has grasped local dialect well. I would have been happier had she left out historical events such as the Halifax Explosion or the Spanish Influenza outbreak as I felt these to be intrusions to the storyline. However, the novel is a good read and well worth the time.

And so, what to read next? With the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, it has come to my attention that I've never read one of his books. To remedy this, I have borrowed Slaughterhouse-Five from my son. Rest well, Mr. Vonnegut.

Good writing everyone,
Colleen