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Hooray! An Event of Successful Fiction and Memoir

July 28, 2013 by

IMG_2731Yesterday, we headed down to Alexandria, Va., to attend an event at Hooray for Books with Beth Kephart, whose writing cannot be praised enough, and Debbie Levy, who is as charming in person as I expected.  It has been many years since I’ve been there, but I’ve always loved the waterfront, the Torpedo Factory, and many other things about the shops and restaurants there.  While I did notice some changes, including the movement of Hannelore’s where I got my wedding dress to a side street off of King Street, much of the atmosphere remains the same.  What did we do after the event? We went to our favorite pub, Murphy’s, though after the nauseated morning I had, I did not dare have the Guinness I would have love to have.  And then we took Wiggles around to check out the sights she has never seen.  (pictured here is my favorite tree down by the water).

Due to construction on the lovely George Washington Parkway, I was late to the event and I hate being late!  I abhor it.  My husband kindly dropped me off as he sought parking.  I walked in and was told there were still seats, which was good, though I would have stood for this one.  And stupidly, I became too absorbed in the conversation to take too many photos.  There was talk about memoir and its differences from fiction and autobiography, and how there is still a need for imagination in memoir, but not in making up facts.  We all know those memoirists that have been caught bending or blatantly making up facts — they are not Beth Kephart or Debbie Levy (below Beth on the left and Debbie on the far right).

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There were books galore to be had at the bookstore, and when my husband finally arrived with Wiggles, they sat for a few minutes while the audience — and myself — were engaged in a writing exercise about what friends from our school days would remember about us and what we’d like them to remember — thanks to Debbie Levy.  Earlier we had engaged in a different writing exercise about a first person account of an object, which Beth Kephart dreamt up.  I did share the poem, I will share here at the behest of Beth and Debbie, though I feel it is unfinished.

Ghost in a Book

She was a bean pole
awkward
books hanging from her nose,
from her hands,
in her bag.
Looking down, but
always -- inwardly -- out
to a horizon
beyond four walls,
small town, gossip.
Ready to spring --
jump forward, move
and leave us
wondering if she was here.

I’ve honestly written more poetry than fiction and essay and have never written memoir or nonfiction. It was good to stretch my writing in these exercises, and it was fun to see what others came up with. Some of them were funny and sarcastic, while others were serious. This was a great event for more than one reason — writing exercises, readings, questions and answers — but most of all the genuine awe and support the writers showed for one another, culminating in each buying books from the other’s stacks and signing books to their friends and loved ones. I loved how they bounced questions off of one another and how they interacted. It was like watching two colleagues who have known one another longer than I suspect Beth and Debbie have.

I’ll leave you with my favorite photo from yesterday — thanks to my husband who took the photo — of three lovely ladies.

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Filed Under: announcements, Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Book News: Hooray for Books!, Indeed

July 26, 2013 by

Hooray for Books! is a children’s bookstore in Alexandria, Va., to which I’ve never been.

I haven’t been to a bookstore in Old Town since Olsson’s closed and my husband and I went to our favorite pub, Murphy’s Grand Irish Pub, and their live music fun.  And it was always great to visit the Torpedo Factory.  In fact, my wedding dress was bought at Hannelore’s, which has the best seamstresses in the world, more than 10 years ago.

On Saturday, July 27 at 3:30 p.m., I’ll head down to Virginia with my small family in tow.  Local author Debbie Levy and Pennsylvania-based author Beth Kephart will talk about the fine line between truth and fiction as they discuss their latest books at Hooray for Books in Alexandria, Va.

Debbie Levy will showcase The Year of Goodbyes and Imperfect Spiral, which was just released, and Beth Kephart will talk about her books, Handling the Truth and Small Damages. The authors will read from each book, discuss its creation, and share their thoughts on workshopping the fine line between truth and fiction. For those interested in participating, Kephart says, “We each have an in-store exercise for those who’d like to try their hands at a bit of writing—and to hear our thoughts about their work.”

Levy’s The Year of Goodbyes is a WWII narrative poem based on an actual book created by her own mother, Jutta Salzberg, who lived in Hamburg, Germany, when the Nazi’s took power and began to ramp up their persecution of Jews in 1938. The book is powerful and a great testament to her mother’s memory, her own family’s past, and the hope generated by that remembering, I said in a recent review. Levy’s new book, Imperfect Spiral, is a young adult novel about how tragedy can affect the life of a babysitter, especially when the boy who’s killed is an undocumented immigrant.

Meanwhile, Kephart has had a string of publications in the last year, including Small Damages (new in paperback), Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent, and Handling the Truth (due out in August). Small Damages is a young adult novel set in Spain about the adult decisions that children sometimes must make for themselves, especially when they find themselves in situations that are beyond their comprehension. Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent, on the other hand, is an illustrated, historical fiction, young adult novel that brings to life old Philadelphia in a way that contrasts the opportunities and drawbacks of industrialization in the background as one family struggles to survive when their father is jailed. Kephart’s Handling the Truth, on the other hand, is a book for those interested in writing memoir, which will likely reach the heights of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

I’m ready for this event, are you? What events are on your agenda for the weekend?

Filed Under: announcements Tagged With: , , ,

Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart, Illustrated by William Sulit

July 2, 2013 by

Source: Author Beth Kephart
Paperback, 188 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart, illustrated by her husband William Sulit, is a companion to her centennial novel, Dangerous Neighbors (my review), that provides a more in-depth look at the mysterious William.  William Quinn is adrift when his father is sent to prison and his brother is murdered in 1871 Bush Hill, Pennsylvania.  His ma, Essie, is drowning in her melancholy, barely able to rise to drink a spot of tea in the afternoons, while William is wandering about considering the ways he can fix things.  While attempting to find the right elixir to cure his mother using the classified ads in the Ledger, William also is crafting a plan to right the other wrongs that have befallen his family to return it to stability.

“He reaches in, lifts Ma into his arms.  He presses a kiss to her forehead then straightens to find the balance of her, catching the sight of them both in the mirror across the room — William sandy-haired and river-eyed, Ma rubbed away and sinking, the two of them together like a lowercase T.  Ma’s hair is yellow and loose, a curl fallen to the center of her forehead.  Her skin is pale, her hands just slightly blue.  She doesn’t weigh her right size.  She doesn’t resist.  When the sheet pulls away, her nightdress bunches at her knees.  It’s Ma’s feet that frighten William most of all — the color of bone and much too skinny to put any walking on.”  (page 13 ARC)

Through a mix of true history, careful attention to detail (as always, with Beth), and dynamic characterization, this young man becomes a beacon of honesty and integrity.  His goodness is tested, but he’s on the straight and narrow, despite the stacked circumstances and the pressure to cave in and become someone less than he is.  Kephart brings home the pressure of change and darkness with the thrumming of the machines, the locomotive commotion, and the constant mechanization of the city pounding in the background.  While the industrialization signifies a change and progress that can be beneficial and create opportunity, there also is the darker underbelly of those changes that must be dealt with — the corruption and the abuse of those willing to take advantage of their position and of others.  There is a keen juxtaposition of this in the characters of Officer Kernon and the Ledger’s editor Mr. Childs — one who abuses his position to get what he wants and the other who offers his aid in the form of mentoring and money to young men in need of guidance.

William is intuitive, he’s caring, and he has a gift for returning lost animals to their rightful homes, and this becomes a way for him to see hope in his future and to his mother, a hope that even Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent cannot offer.  Bush Hill comes to life in the hands of Kephart, who clearly loves her subject even the dark alleys and the unsavory places like Cherry Hill Penitentiary.  While William is less mysterious in this novel, there seems to be more to his story or at least there is more for him to see of the world, but readers will get the sense that he’s on the path he’s meant to follow and that he and his Ma will be OK.  Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart, illustrated by William Sulit, is splendid and will leave readers wanting even more.

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the author of 14 books, including the National Book Award finalist A Slant of Sun; the Book Sense pick Ghosts in the Garden; the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Flow; the acclaimed business fable Zenobia; and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover and House of Dance. A third YA novel, Nothing but Ghosts, is due out in June 2009. And a fourth young adult novel, The Heart Is Not a Size, will be released in March 2010. “The Longest Distance,” a short story, appears in the May 2009 HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World.

Kephart is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart’s essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. Kephart teaches the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. You can visit her blog and my interview with her.

My other Beth Kephart reviews:

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, historical fiction, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #219

May 6, 2013 by

Even though my Mailbox Mondays have been on hiatus for the most part this month, I wanted to share all the books I’ve received, some of which already were reviewed.

Mailbox Monday (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. May’s host is 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received for review:

1.  Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris, which came unexpectedly from Little & Brown and may be passed along to someone else.

From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new book of essays taking his readers on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler’s experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist’s shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

2.  Pain, Parties, Work by Elizabeth Winder for review with TLC Book Tours.

In May of 1953, a twenty-one-year-old Plath arrived in New York City, the guest editor of Mademoiselle’s annual College Issue. She lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended the ballet, went to a Yankee game, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She was supposed to be having the time of her life. But what would follow was, in Plath’s words, twenty-six days of pain, parties, and work, that ultimately changed the course of her life.

 

3.  Three-Ring Rascals: The Show Must Go On! by Kate Klise and illustrated by M. Sarah Klise from Anna.

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls!

Step right up and hear the amazing tale of Sir Sidney’s Circus.

Listen to how Sir Sidney, a kindly old circus owner, needed a rest.

Read and weep when Sir Sidney leaves the circus in the hands of a big mean baddie.

Shriek with terror as Barnabas Brambles cracks his whip at Elsa the elephant.

Cry in horror when Mr. Brambles tries to sell Leo the lion to a zoo.

Hide your eyes as the Famous Flying Banana Brothers perform death-defying feats to get the circus train to the show on time!

Can they do it? Will they make it? They better, because THE SHOW MUST GO ON!

Black and white line drawings throughout.

4.  The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein for review with TLC Book Tours (2 copies — one will be passed on to someone).

In this evocative and thrilling epic novel, fifteen-year-old Yoshi Kobayashi, child of Japan’s New Empire, daughter of an ardent expansionist and a mother with a haunting past, is on her way home on a March night when American bombers shower her city with napalm—an attack that leaves one hundred thousand dead within hours and half the city in ashen ruins. In the days that follow, Yoshi’s old life will blur beyond recognition, leading her to a new world marked by destruction and shaped by those considered the enemy: Cam, a downed bomber pilot taken prisoner by the Imperial Japanese Army; Anton, a gifted architect who helped modernize Tokyo’s prewar skyline but is now charged with destroying it; and Billy, an Occupation soldier who arrives in the blackened city with a dark secret of his own. Directly or indirectly, each will shape Yoshi’s journey as she seeks safety, love, and redemption.

5.  Emily & Herman by John J. Healey, which I received for review from Arcade Publishing.

The manuscript of this novel was discovered by John J. Healey in a box left by his grandfather, Professor Vincent P. Healey, after his death. This engaging work of fiction is a romantic account in which four iconic figures of American Letters play a leading role.

In the summer of 1851 Herman Melville was finishing Moby Dick on his family farm in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. Surrounded by his mother, sisters and pregnant wife, it was a calm and productive season until his neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne lured him to Amherst. There they met twenty-year-old Emily Dickinson and her brother Austin. On a whim the two distinguished authors invited the Dickinson siblings to accompany them on a trip to Boston and New York. In Manhattan they met journalist Walt Whitman and William Johnson, a runaway slave, and it was there, despite their efforts to control it, that Emily and Herman fell in love.

This, for the first time, is their story.

6.  Why Photographers Commit Suicide by Mary McCray from the poet for review.

Why Photographers Commit Suicide explores, in small narratives and lyrical poems, the American idea of Manifest Destiny, particularly as it relates to the next frontier—space exploration. Mary McCray examines the scientific, psychological and spiritual frontiers enmeshed in our very human longing for space, including our dream of a space station on Mars. These poems survey what we gain and what we lose as we progress towards tomorrow, and how we can begin to understand the universal melancholy we seem to cherish for what we leave behind, the lives we have already lived. McCray unearths our feelings about what it means to move ahead and stake out new territory, and what it means to be home.

7.  The Fact of the Matter by Sally Keith, which I purchased from Novel Places.

Moving from the mundane to the profound, first through observation of fact and matter, then shifting perspective, engaging a deeper sense of self, these poems re-imagine things great and small, making us care deeply about the world around us. In this cultivated and intricately crafted collection, Sally Keith shows the self as a crucible of force—that which compels us to exert ourselves upon the world, and meanwhile renders us vulnerable to it. Force by which a line unfurls—as in Robert Smithson’s colossal Spiral Jetty—or leads with forward motion—a train hurdling along the west-reaching railroad; Edweard Muybridge’s photographic reels charting animal and human locomotion. With poems remarkable in their clarity, captivating in their matter-of-factness, Keith examines the impossible and inevitable privacy of being a person in the world, meanwhile negotiating an inexorable pull toward the places we call home—one we alternately try and fail to resist.

8.  Trace by Eric Pankey, which I purchased from Novel Places.

His arresting ninth collection of poems, Eric Pankey’s Trace locates itself at a threshold between faith and doubt—between the visible and the invisible, the say-able and the ineffable, the physical and the metaphysical. Also a map of the poet’s journey into a deep depression, these poems confront one man’s struggle to overcome depression’s smothering weight and presence. And with remarkable clarity and complexity, Trace charts the poet’s attempt to be inspired, to breathe again, to give breath and life to words. Ever solemn, ever existential, Pankey’s poems find us at our most vulnerable, the moment when we as humans—believers and nonbelievers alike—must ultimately pause to question the uncertain fate of our souls.

9.  Miss Plastique by Lynn Levin, which I received from the poet for review.

Miss Plastique, the fourth full-length poetry collection by Lynn Levin, invites the reader into a world of female bravado in which Miss Plastique and her many selves rant, fret, joke, fall in love, dress up, and do their hair. Poems in this collection first appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Hunger Mountain, Connecticut Review, Knockout, Nerve Cowboy, and other places. Lynn Levin, a poet known for her eclecticism, humor, and range of poetic styles, is the author of the previous poetry collections Fair Creatures of an Hour, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium, a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (all from Loonfeather Press). Her craft of poetry book, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (with Valerie Fox) is forthcoming from Texture Press in 2013. Lynn Levin is also a writer and literary translator. She has received nine Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and Garrison Keillor has read her work on his radio show The Writer’s Almanac. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levin has lived in the Philadelphia area since 1980. She is the 1999 Bucks County, Pa. poet laureate and currently teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. Advance praise for Miss Plastique: Miss Plastique is a busy girl: giving it to her enemy in stiletto heels, giving it up to an Elvis impersonator, thumbing a ride across Texas. She has turned from the mirror and can’t look back. She’s sexy and seductive and refuses to be pinned down; she’s silk so fluid you could drink her-read her instead, but watch she doesn’t explode in your hands. -Meg Kearney, author of Home By Now

10. Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart, illustrated by William Sulit, a surprise from my dear author friend.

Flavored by the oddities of historic personalities and facts, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent is set in Bush Hill, Philadelphia, 1871—home to the Baldwin Locomotive Works and a massive, gothic prison. Acclaimed writer Beth Kephart captures the rhythms and smells of an extraordinary era as William Quinn and his Ma, Essie, grapple with life among terrible accidents, miraculous escapes, and shams masquerading as truth.

11.  Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence by David Samuel Levinson, unexpectedly from the publisher Algonquin.

Catherine Strayed is living a quiet, un-
remarkable life in a secluded college town following the mysterious death of her husband, a promising writer whose death may have been an accident, a suicide, or perhaps even a murder. When her former mentor (and onetime lover)—a powerful critic who singlehandedly destroyed her late husband’s chance for success—takes a teaching job at the college, Catherine’s world threatens to collapse. For with him has come his latest protégé, an exotic young woman named Antonia Lively. Antonia’s debut  novel has become a literary sensation—but it is, in fact, an almost factual retelling of 
a terrible crime that she relates without 
any concern for the impact its publication will have on the lives of those involved.  As Antonia insinuates herself into Catherine’s life, mysterious and frightening things start to happen, because unbeknownst to Catherine, the younger woman intends to plunder her own dark, regrettable past—and the unsolved death of her husband—for her next literary triumph.

12. Beautiful Decay by Sylvia Lewis, which came unexpectedly from Running Press, though may be appropriate for some near-teenager I know….

Things have a way of falling apart around Ellie Miller. Literally. With a touch that rots, she keeps everyone at a distance—for others’ safety as much as her own comfort.

When newcomer Nate MacPherson makes it his mission to get close to Ellie, she does her best to steer clear. But as Nate reveals an unusual ability of his own, Ellie recognizes a kindred spirit who could accept her for who she is . . . if she lets him.

As family secrets unravel, Ellie will have to discover the beauty within her reach in order to save the ones she loves.

13.  The Look of Love by Bella Andre from Meryl Moss Media unexpectedly — this will likely be passed on to someone else.

Chloe Peterson has vowed never to make the mistake of trusting a man again. Her reasons are as vivid as the bruises on her cheek. So when her car skids off a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced the gorgeous guy who rescues her must be too good to be true.

As a successful international photographer, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women. He’s satisfied with his life—until he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley.

With every loving look—and every sinfully sweet caress—the attraction between them sizzles, and Chloe can’t help but wonder if she’s met the man who may be the exception to her rule….

14.  A Half Forgotten Song by Katherine Webb from HarperCollins for review.

In Half Forgotten Song, fourteen-year-old Mitzy Hatcher’s lonely life on the wild Dorset coast is changed forever when renowned artist Charles Aubrey arrives to summer there with his exotic mistress and daughters.  Mitzy develops a bond with the Aubrey household, gradually becoming Charles’s muse. Over the next three summers, a powerful love is kindled in her that grows from childish infatuation to something far more complex.  Years later, a young man in an art gallery looks at a hastily drawn portrait and wonders at its intensity. The questions he asks lead him to a Dorset village and to the truth about those fevered summers in the 1930s.

15.  The Keeper of Secrets by Julie Thomas from HarperCollins/William Morrow for review.

Beautiful and mysterious, The Keeper of Secrets by Julie Thomas follows a priceless violin across generations—from WWII to Stalinist Russia to the gilded international concert halls of today—and reveals the loss, love, and secrets of the families who owned it.   In 1939 Berlin, 14-year-old Simon Horowitz’s world is stirred by his father’s 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin. When Nazis march across Europe and Simon is sent to Dachau, he finds unexpected kindness, and a chance to live.   In the present day, orchestra conductor Rafael Gomez finds himself inspired by Daniel Horowitz, a 14-year-old violin virtuoso who refuses to play. When Rafael learns that the boy’s family once owned a precious violin believed to have been lost forever, Rafael seizes the power of history and discovers a family story like no other.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #194

September 17, 2012 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. This month’s host is BookNAround.

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received from the library sale a couple weekends ago:

1.  Chosen by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

2.  Haunted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, which I already had and didn’t realize, so I’ll be re-donating it to the library for them to sell again!

3.  Untamed by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

4.  Burned by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

5.  Tempted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast; I still need the second book, Betrayed.

6.  Undercover by Beth Kephart, which is my favorite of her books and one I had borrowed from the library but did not own; Thanks, Anna for finding it.

7.  Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

8.  A Working Girl Can’t Win by Deborah Garrison

9.  The Poems of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Eugene M. Kayden

Review books that have arrived:

10.  Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, which came unsolicited from Penguin.

11.  Things Your Dog Doesn’t Want You to Know by Hy Conrad and Jeff Johnson for a TLC Book Tour in October.

12. The Boys of ’67 by Dr. Andrew Wiest for review.

13. One Last Strike by Tony La Russa, which came unexpectedly and will likely be passed onto someone who would love to read it.

14. The Demoness of Waking Dreams by Stephanie Chong, which came unexpectedly from WunderkindPR and will likely also find a new home.

15. With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Women by Jane Rosenberg LaForge for review.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Small Damages by Beth Kephart

August 2, 2012 by

There are books that pump your adrenaline for you and there are books, like Small Damages by Beth Kephart, that seep deep into your being, settle there, making their mark on your emotions, your perceptions about other cultures, and your own world view.  Kephart has a skill unlike other young adult authors in that she never sees her younger readers as incapable of understanding or of deep emotion.  She trusts them to follow her characters in their unusual circumstances and settings and garner a deeper understanding of what it means to mature from a child into an adult and the responsibilities that weigh on them even now when they are so young in this modern world.

Kenzie Spitzer is an 18-year-old pregnant girl who struggles with the loss of her father and the silence of her mother every day, and she keeps secrets from her friends, her family, and herself.  Kevin Sullivan, the boyfriend, is on his way to Yale in the fall, and she had planned to attend Newhouse film school after a summer on the New Jersey shore in a rented house with her boyfriend and friends.  To say the least, her life is turned upside down by the pregnancy news, but what’s worse is the decision to have the child and give it up for adoption is taken out of her hands when her mother makes arrangements for her to go to Los Nietos (the granchildren) ranch in Spain where she will be cared for by her mother’s friends Miguel and Estela until the baby is born.

“We scatter the herd, break the bulls out of the shade until they are near, running beside us — fast in a straight line, awkward on the turns, annoyed.” (Page 14 ARC)

Like the scattering of the bulls when she arrives, Kenzie’s life has been derailed and those of her friends and of Kevin are moving parallel to her and from her point of view cased in blissful ignorance as her life is the only one changed.  She even ruminates on how even though a child conceived is the doing of man and woman, it is the woman’s life that is changes irrevocably.  Kenzie’s thoughts are very similar to teenage girls, vacillating between the past and what the future could have been — analyzing each moment over and over.  Unlike other novels on this topic, Kephart’s kind hand guides the narration without judgment allowing the character to reveal her own maternal love for the child and her confusion without the harsh lens of blame and resentment.

“I stay where I am, halfway in, halfway out, the moon and the stars bright behind me.”  (Page 172 ARC)

Forced into a decision that is not her own — but is in a roundabout way a compromise with her mother — Kenzie is left adrift in a foreign land with people she doesn’t know or understand, wondering through silences and asking endless questions that are unanswered more often than not.  She meets Esteban with whom a connection is born as they share a tragic parental past, even though for a long while all Kenzie wants is to be someone else, somewhere else.  Like the birds in Seville and at Los Nietos, they are there guiding Kenzie, showing her the color as Kevin had done when her father died.  She is alive, and they remind her.  There is one passage in the novel in which Esteban talks of how one particular bird always comes, but that he brings the others with him — reminiscent of The Conference of the Birds (my review) and the faith they need to find what they seek.

“‘Only to the earth do I tell my troubles,’ Arcadio sings softly, ‘for nowhere in the world do I find anyone to trust.’

‘If my heart had windowpanes of glass,’ Bruno sings the next line, ‘you’d look inside and see it crying drops of blood.’

‘These Gypsies, they are the famous,’ Miguel says.  ‘They are starting very young; they played for Lorca.  They had duende. Have duende. Sí?'”  (Page 165-6 ARC)

Small Damages by Beth Kephart is about the courage we must find within ourselves to face the past, our tragedies and losses, and our fears about the future.  Kenzie is a young woman on the verge of her new life when it is turned upside down, and while the decision to go to Spain is not her own, she finds the courage to make her own decisions for herself, her baby, and her future.  Through the chords and melodies of gypsy music, Kenzie must peel the tough, bumpy rubber skin of the orange in her journey through Spain to reveal the prized juice and supple pulp beneath the skin.  While damages may seem large and insurmountable when they are first scored through our hearts and skin, they heal and become the small scars that make us who we are and how we learn to be better than we were.

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the author of 14 books, including the National Book Award finalist A Slant of Sun; the Book Sense pick Ghosts in the Garden; the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Flow; the acclaimed business fable Zenobia; and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover and House of Dance. A third YA novel, Nothing but Ghosts, is due out in June 2009. And a fourth young adult novel, The Heart Is Not a Size, will be released in March 2010. “The Longest Distance,” a short story, appears in the May 2009 HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World.

Kephart is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart’s essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. Kephart teaches the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. You can visit her blog and my interview with her.

My other Beth Kephart reviews:

Have you seen this book trailer?

Filed Under: ARC, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2012, reviews, young adult fiction Tagged With: , ,

Publication Day for Small Damages by Beth Kephart

July 19, 2012 by

Today, Beth Kephart’s latest young-adult novel, Small Damages is released.  As many of you know, I adore her poetic prose and how her characters and their homes leap off the page, envelop you, and pull you into their worlds.  Her writing most closely resembles the writing I know I have the potential to achieve, and I don’t begrudge her my failings to achieve it.  In fact, I celebrate her care and concern for the perfect word or phrase in each of her books.  I praise her and adore her and her poetry because it is all out there, on the bookshelves — virtual and otherwise — to enchant readers.

I have had her latest book on my shelf for many months, and I’ve been tempted by it each time I walk by the shelf; it calls out to me.  I’ve held off reading it because it was too far in advance so readers would be forced to wait for it to hit shelves and I’ve gotten busy with other books and family things, but Small Damages has been there, in the back of my mind, waiting for me to be ready with its glowing oranges, the fruits of Beth’s labor.

I’m ready now.

I have one solitary day off at the end of the month in which I do not have to toil over my day job, and while I will still have to care for my daughter, who is growing well, I plan to sit and immerse myself in Beth’s beautiful writing…to have her transport me to Spain, a country I’ve loved from afar and in my studies and a country close to my ancestors’ homeland of Portugal.  I want to be absorbed — to fall into Kenzie’s world and her problems and find the beauty that I know is there.

Would I have found Beth without Amy of My Friend Amy?  Possibly, but I still thank her for the introduction to this lovely woman and her poetry.  In the meantime, while you wait for my thoughts on Beth’s book, please feel free to check out some of these other wonderful reviews and to stop by Beth’s blog:

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Curiosity Quills Blog Tour Continues…

February 10, 2012 by

Hello everyone.  I just wanted to let you know that my crazy obsession with poetry is spreading to another blog this week.  Today, I’m guest posting at The Hopeful Librarian as part of the Curiosity Quills Blog Tour.  I hope you’ll check out my essay, which includes quotes from some of my favorite writers — Beth Kephart, Charles Jensen, and Sweta Srivastava Vikram.

Please stop by and let me know what you think.  Also, you can check out my guest interviewer for the tour, here.

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Mailbox Monday #156

December 19, 2011 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. This month’s host is the Let Them Read Books.

Kristi of The Story Siren continues to sponsor her In My Mailbox meme.

Both of these memes allow bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received this week:

1.  Lost in Timeby Melissa de la Cruz from SantaThing!

2.  Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz from SantaThing!

3.  Thirst: The Eternal Dawn No. 3 by Christopher Pike from SantaThing!

4.  Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron unsolicited from Algonquin Books.

5.  Small Damages by Beth Kephart from the author for review.

6.  Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs from Book Blogger Holiday Swap partner Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews.

7.  Jane Austen Made Me Do It edited by Laurel Ann Nattress from Book Blogger Holiday Swap partner Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews.

8. All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson from Harper Collins for review.

What did you receive?

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Some Winners…

December 18, 2011 by

Sorry for the delay in the winners announcements. I hope I don’t forget anyone. I’ve been a bit bogged down with work and other things this month.

The winner of The Unexpected Miss Bennet by Patrice Sarath was Beth Fish Reads!

 

 

 

The 2 winners of You Are My Only by Beth Kephart were Michael of Middle Grade Mafioso and Evangeline from Sugarpeach.  I am sorry for the delay in shipping these books out.  I’ve run into some issues that have precluded me from mailing them, but I hope to get them in the mail to you sometime after the holiday on Dec. 25.  Please accept my sincere apologies.

 

 

The winner of Christmas at Pemberley by Regina Jeffers was Cynthia Wong.

 

 

 

Congrats to all the winners.

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Interview With Beth Kephart

November 11, 2011 by

Earlier today, I posted my review of You Are My Only by Beth Kephart, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and later on in the interview, I’ll let you know how you can win a copy of your own.

I’ve read Beth’s work for the last few years, and I’ve enjoyed her books very much, and I’ve come to understand her writing process through her blog posts and her email conversations.  I just adore her spirit and she’s very motivating even if she doesn’t realize she’s being so.  I was so happy when she agreed to be interviewed about her stellar novel about child abduction, a tough topic for adult and young adult readers alike.

Many of you may have read enough reviews of this book, and some of you may be avoiding the book for one reason or another.  I hope that this interview will help those on the fence about the book to jump off and give Kephart’s work a try.  Without further ado, please welcome Beth.

1. You Are My Only is a haunting title with an equally haunting cover. Was it your intention to create a story that would haunt its readers and get them thinking more in depth about child abduction?

Thank you, Serena, for asking such a great first question. First, the cover credit belongs entirely to Neil Swaab, whose work is exquisite. He reads the books he illustrates and that makes all the difference. Second, this book was evolved over such a long period of time that I cannot say that I set out, from the start, to get people thinking more about child abduction. I was thinking about heartbreak—the loss of a child—and how one manages to survive it. I was thinking about the compassion we must have for people whose hearts have been broken.

2. Some readers have said that Sophie’s voice is stronger and the most engaging in the novel. Do you see one voice as stronger than the other? Why or why not?

I am delighted that readers are distinguishing between the voices, for that, I think, is one of the hardest things to do—to make certain the characters sound just precisely like themselves. Sophie is 14 and while she lives an unusual life, she has not been crushed; she is also gaining an education, however unorthodox. Emmy is not nearly as educated, but she has her own poetic intelligence, and she is heartbroken. I love the characters equally. I typically hear a greater preference for Emmy from adult readers and a greater preference for Sophie from teen readers. It never occurred to me that readers would choose one voice over the other; the two voices are necessary to complete the story.

3. Of the scenes that your wrote in the novel, the soaked feet of Emmy swimming like fish in the pond of her Keds has stayed with me longest, in effect symbolizing the disembodiment of her from the life she knew before her child was abducted. Is there a particular scene that woke you from sleep or came to surprise you as you were writing?

Thank you, Serena. This entire book kept me awake for a very long time. The truth is that, while You Are My Only is a novel, some women do live the terribly bereft life of a lost child, and some children are growing up inside airless homes. I felt a great desire to get this right, a great urgency to keep reworking the stories until they honored the emotions (if not the precise storylines) of what real people have endured. I hardly ever sleep when I am working, which is to say: I sport some pretty dark circles under my eyes.

4. Your work often has a poetic feel and I know that you’ve written poetry before. Did/do you have plans for a poetry collection in the future? If not, have you read any great poetry collections that you’d recommend?

I do not have a poetry collection pending, though years ago I thought (for a brief moment) about trying to package a book of poetry and art. It still sits on my computer. I love Neruda, Stern, Gilbert, Ondaatje, Kunitz.

5. Poetry is often considered elitist or inaccessible by mainstream readers. Do poets have an obligation to dispel that myth with their writing styles? Or what other solutions do you see to get more mainstream readers interested in poetry?

Oh, my goodness. This is a great question, but I am not sure I have a good answer for it. Poets have an obligation to be rigorous with language, to imagine deeply, to feel deeply, to know. The rest of us are impoverished souls if we can not find our way to the work of these poets. (And please know that I am not counting myself among these poets; real poets do more than I can do or have done.)

6. Finally, your blog often covers writing struggles, shares photography, and some of your recent reading. How do you find time to balance the blog, writing, and your job teaching? Are there particular habits, routines, or obsessions that help you accomplish that balance?

Oh, Serena, I have no balance. I am grabbing at time, getting up very early, despairing that I will never finish or sell another book. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I cannot work on the computer when I am writing a novel. I have to go to another room and find a slice of sun and some silence. The vast majority of my time is spent running a business—a boutique marketing communications firm called Fusion. The next big chunk of time is spent making sure the house is in order—the bills paid, the floors swept, the meals on the table, and (when my beautiful son is home from college, I try to spend as much time as I can with him, of course). During spring semesters at the University of Pennsylvania, I spend about twenty-five hours each week teaching, preparing for class, working with new students and former students. Finally, to relieve the pressure of things, I dance. And so I write far more slowly than anyone realizes. Weeks will go by without a novelistic or memoiristic word. The blog is my outreach, my way of writing at least some one thing each day.

Thanks, Beth, for answering my questions; it has been a pleasure conversing with you in last year or so. As a bonus to my readers, Beth agreed to share a picture of her writing space; isn’t it gorgeous!

Beth Kephart's Office

To Enter to win 1 of 2 copies of You Are My Only by Beth Kephart, leave a comment on this post.

For a second entry, let me know that you commented on my review.

For up to 3 more entries, share this giveaway with people on Facebook, Twitter, and/or your blog and leave a link.

Deadline Nov. 18, 2011, at 11:59 PM EST. Perfect holiday gift.

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You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

November 11, 2011 by

You Are My Only by Beth Kephart tackles the tough topic of child abduction from two perspectives — that of the young victim, Sophie, and that of a mother, Emmy, whose child is stolen.  In this powerful, yet quiet novel, Kephart explores how one unexpected event can devastate entire worlds.

While the topic is ripped from the headlines, there is no sensationalism here.  Through carefully selected words in her poetic prose, Kephart builds tension and suspense, like the quiet vibration growing louder on the railroad tracks as the train approaches.  It also provides a quiet space — like the air between the branches of a tall tree — for readers to contemplate what each voice is saying, what each voice is struggling to address, what pain is closed inside of them and just clawing to get out.

“My feet are two pale fish inside the tight ponds of my Keds.  I leave the street for the train station.  I leave the station and cross onto the tracks, slick-backed and shiny as snail glisten.  The black gauze of the clouds flap at the moon, and from the tracks I can see into the backs of people’s houses, the private places where the lamps have not gone off.  It’s like looking through snow globes, worlds behind glass.”  (page 21)

Kephart’s prose is very lyrical and imagistic, and readers need to pay careful attention to her lines.  For instance, the above passage perfectly demonstrates Emmy’s frame of mind after losing her child.  She is lost, drowning, unmoored.  She has become separate from those who have “normal” lives because that’s what she believed she had with her child and husband, no matter how imperfect the marriage.

Emmy and Sophie have strong voices, both with stories to tell, and having one without the other here would have left too much unsaid.  Kephart is a masterful storyteller, building characters from the inside out, ensuring readers receive well-rounded men and women with strengths and weaknesses.  But there is always a mystical element to her novels, something in the background that is left unexplained.  She trusts the reader to uncover the truth of these relationships she’s building and the mysteries of what motivates them to keep moving forward even when things are at their most dark and uncertain.

“But my voice skids away, rides the slippery tracks.  Far away, at the bend in the rails, the night is lamped.  It is yellow and growing brighter, and now I understand:  the train has big yellow eyes.  Lovely ocher liquid eyes.  They put the shimmer down on the tracks and splatter the dark.”  (Page 22)

Beyond the main story, there are Helen and Cloris a devoted couple of aunts to a young boy, Joey, who is as normal as can be to Sophie.  Like Joey who supports Sophie, quirky Arlen and fantastical Autumn support Emmy in ways that are unexpected.  Although Emmy’s scenes, which are told from her point of view, limit readers’ knowledge of how she becomes institutionalized, it is not how she got there that is important to the story.  What is important is what happens there and how it transforms her.  Some of the hospital scenes are reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — minus the booze, floozies,and Nurse Ratched — in that she is there against her will and wants to escape, but for a while she merely is.  The relationship Emmy builds with Autumn helps her repair her broken psyche, and in this way, Kephart’s hospital is the antithesis of what happens in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

You Are My Only is an emotional powerhouse drawing redemption out of the shattered pieces of lives rendered asunder by a single event.  Through faith and love these characters can begin the heal, rebuild, and flourish.  What more could readers ask for?  Stunning, precious, and captivating from beginning to end.

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the author of 10 books, including the National Book Award finalist A Slant of Sun; the Book Sense pick Ghosts in the Garden; the autobiography of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Flow; the acclaimed business fable Zenobia; and the critically acclaimed novels for young adults, Undercover and House of Dance. A third YA novel, Nothing but Ghosts, is due out in June 2009. And a fourth young adult novel, The Heart Is Not a Size, will be released in March 2010. “The Longest Distance,” a short story, appears in the May 2009 HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World.

Kephart is a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Kephart’s essays are frequently anthologized, she has judged numerous competitions, and she has taught workshops at many institutions, to all ages. Kephart teaches the advanced nonfiction workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. You can visit her blog.  Also check out this chat.

My other Beth Kephart reviews:

Please come back this afternoon for my interview with Beth Kephart about You Are My Only and for a giveaway.

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