The Breath of Life

I finish reading The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. My mouth is filled with grit and sand, my feet are cut and bruised by stone, my fingers grip the breath of life. This is a story about women. This is story about blood and death. This is a story about the lengths to which we must go sometimes to survive. It's scary in that regard. Scary to know what we as human beings are capable of doing to one another—and ourselves. We have enough reminders of that on a daily basis. And yet…

Alice Hoffman is my favorite contemporary author and this is, perhaps, her greatest work, and yet…I've put off reading it. Now, I'll have to read it again someday, this story of Yael, Revka, Aziza, and Shirah. I'll have to read it with more care and devotion. This story of lions and doves.

It's so very layered and intricate. Each sentence explodes with meaning.

If it is indeed: our duty as human beings to see behind the veil to the inside of the world, to the heart of things, then it would seem that Alice Hoffman has fulfilled her duty as a human being and then some.

How to Read a Short Story

I finish reading Black Dahlia & White Rose, a collection of seriously creepy stories by Joyce Carol Oates. Although I'm not a huge fan of short stories, this is the third short story collection I've read in the past year. Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman being the other two. They are growing on me, these books of short stories.

Leaf Storm is incredible. So is The Red Garden. The stories in Leaf Storm revolve around Macondo, a fictional town in Colombia. They are horizontal because they all take place in about the same time period. The stories in The Red Garden are about Blackwell, Massachusetts and they are vertical in that the tales occur in a linear progression through time.

The twine that binds the stories in Black Orchid & White Rose is twisting. Oate's needle inserts itself into the human psyche and extracts disturbing grey matter. A few of them are really good for what they are: biopsies.

The trick I've found to reading short stories is reading them one day at a time. Kind of a reading hors d'oeuvre. That works well. It can take me a while to get through them, but I enjoy them more that way. It gives me at least twenty-four hours to absorb what I've read.

Our Sins of Butter, Eggs, Flour & Sugar

I'm still reading The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman. I read one of the fourteen stories at a time, so I can make it last. But there will still be The End.

I'm thinking about finding this place, Blackwell, Massachusetts. I want to climb High Top Mountain and find a bear in a cave. Or better yet, a bear cub. Then stop by the Jack Straw Bar and Grill, maybe I'll hear some good stories from the locals. I don't think I'll swim in Eel River, even though there aren't that many eels in it anymore, not like there used to be, anyway. But I'll go have a look. Maybe sit for a awhile on the riverbank and see if the Apparition shows up.

I will definitely eat an apple.

Too bad Ava Cooper went back to California. Otherwise, I could indulge in some Devil's Food Cake, Lust Cake, Gluttony Cake—or maybe one slice each of Gratitude Cake and Apology Cake. Unless Envy Cake is what's on the menu.

Sigh.
All those sins of butter, eggs, flour, and sugar.
Maybe it would be easier to get down to San Francisco and stand in line on a Saturday night.

The Place Alice Hoffman Creates

Welcome to the Alice Hoffman Birthday Blog Hop! Today, March 16, 2013, I'm thrilled to be celebrating Alice Hoffman's birthday with other readers who love her unique and inimitable voice. Please visit all the sites linked at the bottom of this post for the complete experience!

I intended to write this post on Claire Story of The Story Sisters, having recently read the book for the second time. The first time I read it I fell in love with Elv. Her fierce love of horses, her inability to reduce her sensitivities to socially acceptable levels, her sacrifice of self to protect her youngest sister, along with her ability to see fairies and demons, kept me glued to every page. And when her life took an unexpected twist I sat in my papasan chair and sobbed. Not the dainty, a few hot tears rolling down my cheeks, sniffles, no, it was the snorting, messy kind that you never want another human being to witness, but feels so cleansing when it’s over.

Brave, reckless Elv. I resurrected a pair of black leather cowboy boots with pointy toes and got another tattoo, a daisy fairy on my left hip.

But after the second read, I’m on the lookout for charms.

Because this time, I'm enthralled with Claire. She’s the one who was strong enough to love both her sisters. Which brings me to another thing I love about The Story Sisters, it’s unflinching when it comes to the girl’s complex relationships. I have a friend who is an only child and doesn’t get how beastly sisters can be to one another.

I have sisters. Our relationships are strained and complicated, too. Perhaps that’s why these words in Arnish—spoken at dusk—can bring tears to my eyes: Nom brava gig. My brave sister. Reunina lee. I came to rescue you. Alana me sora minta. Roses wherever you looked.

My sisters are velvety petals with thorns, too.

Claire won me over with her silence. And her rebirth. Learning to make jewelry, mastering the craft. No matter how conventional wisdom goes on and on about family and friends, sometimes soulful work is the only thing that keeps some of us alive.

So that was my plan for this first Alice Hoffman Birthday Blog Hop, gush about Claire Story and Arnish, maybe Pollo—and Pete who wraps all the broken Story women in bandages of strength and dignity while they conjure the will to move forward, but now I’m reading The Red Garden. Quite frankly, I’m a little bit stunned.

It’s a collection of contemporary-ish fairy tales. I’m not a fan of short stories. Perhaps because it seems like a lot of investment, getting to know the characters, the setting, etc. and then—whiff—they’re gone. It’s over. But I read Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez last year, and found it enjoyable and fascinating. Marquez linked his collection of stories around a single place, the fictional town of Macondo, Colombia. When I discovered all the tales in Hoffman’s The Red Garden wind around and through rural Blackwell, Massachusetts, I became curious.

There are fourteen tales. I’ve read seven. The stunned part is how each one builds, externally, the literal place of Blackwell, and internally, the pressure upon the heart of the reader. It all begins with Hallie finding refuge in that bear. And her cub. And then comes John Chapman with his apple seeds and innocent passion. By the time Sophia snatches up the card of death and Amy is buried in her blue dress and bare feet, the magic is palpable. When Emily’s long walk ends in the frenzied creation of a scent-focused garden for Charlie who’s lost his sight, we’re left with a taste of wistful in the mouth and the sense of crushed potpourri in the hand.

Remember Amy and her blue dress? She may be gone, but somehow she manages to save Evan and Mattie when nothing and no one else can. But when Topsy, the elephant, dies, it leaves a gash in your heart. Thank goodness, he gets reborn as a pug whose devotion will make you remember that man is a syllable of woman.

I can’t wait to read The Fisherman’s Wife tonight.

Because in The Red Garden Alice Hoffman has doubled her creation of place.

Since Jess and I decided we wanted to create this blog hop, I’ve been asking myself: What is it about Hoffman’s work that moves me, affects me, wrings me out on such deep levels?

With her stories, Hoffman creates a place for the weary, the wounded, the ravaged, the savaged, the damaged, the self-contained, and the lonely, to take off their hats and coats and rest. Among the world of her characters we’re not too sensitive, we’re not too broken, we’re not too full of sorrow, and we’re not beyond comprehension; we’re one of them.

I think that’s why I have to read an Alice Hoffman book every few months. Sometimes daily life breaks me down, breaks down the things about me that I love about myself; reading Alice Hoffman is getting an IV drip. In her pages, I get to live in a world where I’m not too weird—spinning off an another wavelength—I’m the norm. It’s such solace. It’s so hopeful. It reconnects me to humanity.

And that is a holy thing.

Thank you, Alice.

Is Place Mystical?

I am reading The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman. Ever since I read Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez I am enchanted by this idea of a collection of short stories united by place. The place in Leaf Storm is Macondo, a fictitious town in Colombia. The place in The Red Garden is Blackwell, a rural town in Massachusetts.

Having the good fortune and misfortune of living many places--the good fortune of being exposed to variety and difference, the misfortune of leaving one a bit rootless--I find place to be mystical, i.e. every place on this great earth has its own unique convergence of energy.

You can't really sense place in a single visit, much as you can't always know a person after one conversation. But living in a place, over a period of time, you start to grasp its particularities, and idiosyncrasies, and how those effect the people who live there.

I have lived in the desert, I have lived near the beach, I have lived on the plains, I have lived in proximity of mountains…each place has its own identity, as definable as any person or character. I suppose that is why this concept…story of place…intrigues me so.

The first story in Red Garden leaves me thinking, as much of Alice Hoffman's work does. And I'm one of those animal lovers. For someone who is so wordy, it is perhaps their wordlessness that draws me to them. That and their eyes.

Alice Hoffman's Birthday Blog Hop!

Indie Life: Keeping it Real

Being genuine. Keeping it Real. 

How to do that in an online, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Google + world?

I have spent a year trying to answer that question for myself. What I have learned is this: By jumping into the river and swimming, I begin to discover things. As I'm paddling and floating along, my heart and mind connect to things that turn me on, make me feel more alive, and help me grow my way of seeing myself, others, and the world around me.

Those are the things I retweet, share, and comment on. It feels good. There's an impulse to be random, formulaic, and mechanical, and I have experimented with that. For me, it might involve some time savings, but it never feels quite right.

I struggled a lot last year with my website and blog. Having blogged in the past, I knew what a time suck it could be. I didn't want to start up anything I would come to resent, or worse feel disconnected from. Like I was just going through the motions, or just doing it because everyone says I need an author platform.

There were a lot of false starts. I kind of went off in this direction and that one; I felt kind of stuck and uninspired. As the year wore on, I was reading a lot more and then I picked up Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I fell in love with the stories in it and wanted to chatter about it. Out of all that, Eating Magic, my stream-of-consciousness eating journal, inspired by the Alice Hoffman quote: Books may well be the only true magic was born. 

I get more regular traffic from Eating Magic than anything else I've experimented with, and the truth is, I would continue with it even if I didn't get the traffic, because I love it and it's a lot of fun to write.

Russell Blake is a successful indie author who I follow on Twitter.  He made a comment on his post New Year, New Hurdles & Opportunities: They are singularities. He was referring to John Locke, Amanda Hocking, E.L. James, John Grisham, and Hemingway. He meant their particular road to success is not repeatable. So what are we to do if we can't mimic, copy, or follow behind in their footsteps?

It seems, indie authors--and authors--who experience break-out success don't follow any set rules; they follow their passions and find their own way to keep it real. I know that's the key to accessing the excitement that fired me up to take this journey in the first place.

So every now and then I ask myself: Are you keeping it real?

What about you? Does being genuine feel important to you as an indie author?

The Finest Dark Chocolate For Your Kindle...

I'm re-reading The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. According to Goodreads, I've been doing this since September 14, 2013. Sigh.

Reading a book for the second time is different than reading it for the first time. The first time is sensory, full of questions, the unknown beckons. The second time it's like: Your eyes are wide open. You know what's coming. You know where the tragedies are buried and the sweetness lives. And you're older, too. Maybe just a little bit, but still, you've changed.

Perhaps, this is why my second reading of The Story Sisters has been so halting. I'm feeling different about Elv. She was the dark heroine the first time I read the book, but now it's Claire. She's like a prism, her love for her mother and her sisters and her ama and her dog, refracting a color wheel of light.

Every day after school she went to the cemetery. While other girls were meeting boyfriends, going to dances, working on the school newspaper, Claire was walking through the wrought-iron gates.

Sometimes her grandmother feared that Claire was evaporating. What would be left of her if she kept disappearing into a smaller and smaller world of her own? Her shoes, her hat, her coat. Nothing more.

Customers listened to Claire's opinion. Her small sulky voice forced them to lean close in order to catch her advice. In the end they all understood what she was telling them: Stones were the only thing that lasted.

I think I've said this before: It's a bittersweet read. The finest dark chocolate for your kindle, nook, or iThingy…

Reunina Lee. I came to Rescue You.