Month: December 2023

The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper

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Dark-is-Rising

This time of year, when the sun begins to return even though winter is just beginning (in the northern hemisphere), has been celebrated with rituals throughout the centuries. Prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge, the building of which is believed to have begun around 3100 BCE, identify the precise moment of the winter and summer solstices. They probably had other uses as well; certainly Stonehenge was also a burial site and may be been used for religious ceremonies, a healing site, and/or as an astronomical observatory.

My favorite books about the solstice are The Dark Is Rising sequence, five fantasy novels by Susan Cooper for young adults. The author draws on Arthurian legends, Celtic and Norse mythology, and English folklore to tell the story of the struggle between good and evil.

In keeping with the season, these are identified as the Light and the Dark, which raised no cultural sensitivity concerns when the books were published in the 1960s and 1970s. Whatever we might think today of the persistent identification of dark colors with evil, these are still the best terms to describe the turmoil at the time of the winter solstice, when the sun tries to return and the darkness resists.

In these stories Will Stanton discovers that he is one of an ancient mystical people called “Old Ones” who are gifted with magical powers. He is the seventh son of a seventh son, and his eleventh birthday is the moment when he comes into his powers, including the ability to move through time. He is tasked to find the four Things of Power which the Old Ones need in order to vanquish the Dark.

Cooper’s five books are truly wonderful, especially for someone like me who grew up with these myths and legends. I can still picture that corner of my neighborhood library, just to one side of the front door, that held the books that captured my imagination as a child and put me on the path to become a writer.

The return of the sun inspires us with hope. Whether you are celebrating the winter solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Hanukkah, St. Lucia’s Day, the Lunar New Year, Las Posados, or another festival, I wish you joy, health, love and peace, now and in the coming year.

What are your favorite books of the season, however you celebrate it?

The Music Shop, by Rachel Joyce

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I’ve written before about Joyce’s novels The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Miss Benson’s Beetle, so I looked forward to reading this, her fourth novel. It was even better than I expected.

In London of 1988, Frank owns a record shop—yes, vinyl only—on a street where the buildings are literally falling apart and the shops all struggling. His superpower is to find the perfect piece of music for whoever comes into his shop. They may know what they want, but he knows what they need.

Frank had helped them through illness, grief, loss of confidence and jobs, as well as the more daily things like football results and the weather. Not that he knew about all those things, but really it was a matter of listening, and he had endless patience.

The other shopkeepers are drawn with respect and compassion. Mr. Novak the baker, Maude the tatooist, Father Anthony selling religious bookmarks and other iconography, the Williams brothers who run a funeral home and are often seen holding hands: they are given to us in their fullness. This is an approach I noted in Joyce’s other books, the way she respects the voice of even the minor characters and her tone. She doesn’t make fun of the characters or look down on them.

The push by a development company to buy out tenants and shop owners alike, in order to tear down all the buildings to make way for luxury apartments, strains the communal bonds of the street whose inhabitants have previously been so supportive of each other.

Then a German woman in a green coat faints outside Frank’s shop. Ilse Brauchmann slowly becomes enmeshed in the community, with her mysterious background and amazing—to Frank at least—ability to fix anything mechanical. Eventually she asks Frank to give her music lessons.

The true joy of the book for me is listening to Frank talk about music. His sensitive descriptions, which have almost nothing to do with music theory and much to do with emotion and theme, have sent me back to pieces I thought I knew well and to others that were new to be. He says:

‘Music comes out of silence and at the end it goes back to it. It’s a journey . . . the silence at the beginning of a piece of music is always different from the silence at the end . . . Because if you listen, the world changes.’

As a writer, I was fascinated by Joyce’s interweaving of all these different strands to make an irresistable tapestry. I also noted the way she teased out the characters’ backgrounds with the same care as Frank layering in the context of a piece of music, and thus providing us with the same kind of insight.

At this time, when so much seems to be wrong with the world, this novel gave me comfort, reminding me of our common humanity and how we find it through our emotions in music, mutual concerns, and each other.

What novel by Rachel Joyce have you read? What did you think of it?

Book Launch for A Heart Afire

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A Heart Afire

Last week I was delighted to attend the launch of Patricia Meisol’s A Heart Afire: Helen Brooke Taussig’s Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine. Here is what Pat said about the evening:

“Thrilled to launch my biography about a woman doctor’s lifelong crusade to improve health care and end suffering. She changed medicine. Her work is not done.”

Some reviews:

“An enormous work—and, indeed, achievement—covering a life that explores most of the twentieth century. This impressive piece of research is not just about one woman, but also about the health of a nation and global developments in science and medicine.”
—Claire Brock, Associate Professor, University of Leicester; author of British Women Surgeons and Their Patients, 1860–1918

“Exquisitely told with a penetrating eye for detail and the telling anecdote, Patricia Meisol’s biography of Helen Taussig is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of medicine and the twentieth-century struggles of women to break through the profession’s glass ceiling. What emerges from these pages is nothing less than the birth of modern heart surgery.”
—Jonathan Bor, The Baltimore Sun

Working in a critique group with Pat and others, I witnessed the sheer volume of work that goes into creating a biography. Even before you start writing there are the years of research, chasing down clues and people and documents. Then there is the writing itself and all the rewriting that goes into creating any piece of writing much less a book-length manuscript.

I’ll write more about the book itself later—hint: it’s brilliant! Though I admit I’m biased—but for now I want to celebrate the huge accomplishment of a having a book launched out into the world.
 
 

Pat's book launch 1

 
 
Pat's book launch 2

Terrace Story, by Hilary Leichter

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Imagine that you are young and living in a tiny apartment with your spouse. Then there’s a new baby, and it feels like you don’t have room to turn around. The windows look out on other walls, and it’s all so cramped and impossible. Then your friend Stephanie comes to visit, and when she opens a closet door, instead of broom and dustmop, there is a terrace: a large terrace, with a table and chairs and green plants and a gorgeous view.

Whoa, I thought, as dazzled by the idea as the characters are by the sudden sunlight. Impatiently turning the pages, I was terrified that the rest of the story wouldn’t hold up. Reader, it did. It knocked my socks off.

By story I mean the first of the four interlocking stories that make up this book. I don’t want to go into too much detail, and urge you not to read more about the book. Just jump in and let yourself be surprised and saddened and swept away.

Leichter finds imaginative yet concrete ways to get us to think about love and time and space and memory—those ineffable concepts. The book is funny and unsettling, sweet and compelling.

Enough with the adjectives. This may be the shortest review I’ve written, because I don’t know how to write about it or analyse it without giving too much away. I’ll just say that magic happens when the author unleashes her imagination and invites us into the story.

What book have you read recently that knocked your socks off?