SECRETS OF A MYSTERIOUS OLDER WOMAN or Don't Face The Facts . . . By Constance Feathers

One Amazon reviewer compared this book to the writings of the late essayists, Erma Bombeck and Jean Kerr. High praise, indeed, and not misplaced. Please consider the following . . .

If Constance Feathers did not already possess an impeccable sense of comic timing before she opened her cabaret act, she certainly developed said skill on the job. It now shines through in the pacing of her hilarious memoir, complete with songs, dances, and jokes from her stage show. Pacing, it might be added, that kept this usually slow reader turning pages until completion of the book . . . in one sitting. That never happens.

Readers will sense - and not just from the single sitting component - the resonance of this book; truth weaves through the comic alter ego performance pieces just as surely as it exists in the author's laughter-inducing life experiences. Ms. Feathers' ability to showcase the "funny" in scenes, such as border crossings between France and Switzerland and a necklace-stealing cat, raises what might have been just moderately enjoyable fluff in other hands to a level approaching the sublime.

Fiction only readers need not shy away, this memoir contains some made-up segments. Feathers sprinkles her life experience chapters, called Intermissions, among those based on her stage show "which does have certain similarities to my life" where her true experiences have been upended and tumbled as if through a laundry cycle, rendering what must have been splendid fun for her cabaret audiences and is now chuckle-inciting pleasure for her readers. Expect the most notable fiction sequence to appear near the book's end in one of the two versions of the epilogue.

Women should share this gem, gifting it between friends, sisters, mothers and daughters; book groups should discuss it, perhaps accompanied by some of the ". . .light, dry, white table wine of the [Swiss] region (the worst of which is excellent). . ." spreading the laughter and embracing the comedy in life's otherwise ordinary moments. We should all aspire to become Mysterious Older Women.

Remember . . . "MOW rhymes with WOW!"

Secrets of a Mysterious Older Woman or Don't Face The Facts by Constance Feathers is available in paperback ($16.95) or as a Kindle download ($2.99) at www.amazon.com.

 

FEAR OF FALLING by Hannah R. Goodman

READ THIS BOOK. For readers unfamiliar with Hannah R. Goodman's first two Young Adult novels featuring Maddie Hickman: My Sister's Wedding, and My Summer Vacation, read those two award winners in that order, then READ THIS BOOK.

If there is a fear of falling, just jump. Advice from Maddie's grandmother, Bubbie.

In her third installment, Maddie, now a high school junior nursing grief, hides from life in the school newspaper office where, as the editor, she can immerse herself in the work. When the paper is under control she lingers there writing sad verse. In so doing, Maddie minimizes anxiety attacks and limits her social interactions until she receives an anonymous letter from a gay student who has been threatened.

Although any of Goodman's novels are stand-alone readable, and they're all good, reading them in order lets us in on the realistic fashion in which Maddie grows, and the continuity of her story throughout the three (so far) novels. Maddie's development, and that of her friends, is reminiscent of the two steps forward one step back, tentative way we proceeded through our teen years, and sometimes during adulthood, as well.

Goodman is also masterful at moving the plot, using active language to engage readers and keep them turning the pages. There is an element of mystery in this story - Who is the anonymous letter writer? Who is the jock who hit him? - that raises it above the already award-winning level of the previous two books. Clues are inserted throughout and there is an interesting, perhaps unexpected, yet ultimately satisfying twist when all is revealed.

Good books often refer to other literary works from the Bible to Shakespeare, as well as more current fare. A few such references appear in Fear of Falling, the prominent one during an English Lit class discussion of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. As is often the case, the reader's enjoyment is not diminished for not knowing the reference. However, enjoyment and understanding are often enhanced when the cited work is familiar. This story also gives a nod to Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which includes an anonymous letter writer and a gay student, and itself pays homage to The Catcher In the Rye.

In further applause for the realistic handling of teen angst, readers will appreciate the opportunity for Maddie to work through the grief that began in the previous novel. As grief is a long process, most of us know that it does not pass with the end of one's summer vacation. Kudos to Goodman for seamlessly weaving that aspect of Maddie's earlier experience into her current story, and in fact, for making this story's events the catalyst for Maddie to view the previous tragedy in the light of truth.

Seriously, read this book.

Fear of Falling by Hannah R. Goodman is available at http://www.amazon.com/ where shortly this review will also appear.

The Shack by William P. Young

I knew I was in trouble when I read the following blurb below the author's name on the front cover.

"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" - Eugene Peterson

Could someone have written a 21st century version of the most tedious, unreadable book I'd ever encountered? I wondered.

Like yours, my reading time is valuable. I don't have time for overtly contrived and didactic. I never completed Pilgrim's Progress and THAT was for a grade. I considered returning this book to the store where I, upon recognizing the title as the one I'd been requested to read and review, had scooped it off the shelf without a second glance.

Okay, I thought, just read a couple chapters in order to explain my complaints to the person who made the special request. She's my sister, by the way, and her book recommendations are usually spot on so I never questioned her lack of any descriptive information beyond the title. I think she suspected I wouldn't want it and hoped it would slip under her Jewish sister's radar.

So I read. Did I find the story contrived? Yes. Did I detect didacticism? Oh, yes. Was it as painful to read as Pilgrim's Progress? Thank goodness, no. One can actually finish this book. Indeed, you'll read on hoping for a certain outcome - of which I'll not divulge - and maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. No spoiler alerts needed here.

Mack Phillips is a sad and devastated man. His youngest child, six year old Missy, had been abducted during a camping trip a few years earlier, a bloodstained item the only evidence found in a remote shack. A note, seemingly from G-d, inviting him to the shack for a weekend appears in his mailbox. He goes and meets the holy trinity. Or does he?

Readers might be attracted to this book for the potential controversy. There are bound to be sides taken. It seems a story for Christians, and yet quite anti-organized-religion. It advocates for a personal relationship with G-d without religion getting in the way - no middleman, so to speak.

I appreciated the unusual characterization of G-d as a woman, a wonderful African-American mother who cooks and bakes - dare I say it - indescribably heavenly dishes. But even that fell apart after further reading. I should have seen it coming since they never stopped referring to her as Papa.

Another point that is bound to draw some boos and hisses appears when Jesus tells Mack that he's not Christian, but Jewish. That will probably rankle some people on both sides of the organized religion question, however, many Christians do accept that fact about Jesus so perhaps not widespread rankling.

My lack of pleasure from this book stems more from its grammar hiccups, and other writing complaints, than from any religious argument. I know some stellar writers, people who can make the print sing from the pages, and yet they remain unpublished. It simply left me a bit on the cold side. On the other hand, my sister felt moved to tears at times during her reading, and considers herself better informed about the trinity.

As previously stated, I stayed to the end in hopes of seeing a desired result. I'm not saying I got what I wanted, but maybe I did.

Now the only remaining question is . . . Who is Eugene Peterson and how could he think Pilgrim's Progress is good?

MR. LOWRY, WHERE ARE YOU?

I referenced The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in my piece on The Old Man and the Sea. Well, I really stepped it then; one of the subsequent comments suggested I review Rime. I responded positively, after all, I liked it when I read and reviewed it under the tutelage of Mr. Lowry, my freshman English teacher. Nevertheless, I remain hopelessly poetically challenged and had no idea how I would proceed.

Although not kosher to contact one's former teachers - even potentially retired ones - I checked the telephone book for Mr. Lowry's number (I never used, but do remember, his first name). Fortunately, his unlisted status - a sound policy followed by many teachers, I suspect - relieved me of all possible temptation.

I liked Rime so much that, in spite of the decades that separate this from my ninth-grade year, I've employed the albatross hanging from neck analogy more times than I can say, and I think of this ballad whenever parched and in need of water. Case in point, my recent reading of Hemingway's Old Man recalled the mariner and lead to my current predicament, that of being unqualified to expound on a poem, especially one so rich in wild and magical imagery, so shape-shifting of form, and so full of archaic words - I mean already archaic for Coleridge's time.

My favorite of those words - eftsoons - is found in the third stanza. It means soon afterward, or immediately following. This word alone is a reason to love this ballad. Eftsoons my first reading of the illustrated copy I borrowed from the library, I entered a bookstore in search of a study guide. The store did not stock a guide but found an illustrated edition, different from my library one, among their bargain books, and eftsoons I bought it. Eftsoons another reading or two of the ballad, I located and purchased a downloadable study guide on Coleridge's Poetry. While not devoted solely to Rime it does comment on it, among others of Coleridge's works. In that commentary, it states that Rime is unique among his poems for several reasons. One of them is his intentional use of archaic language. And the word cited to demonstrate that point - eftsoons!

My study guide informs me that Rime "is written in loose, short ballad stanzas usually either four or six lines long but, occasionally, as many as nine . . ." I noticed that, too. My reading also made me aware of the following, although I'd never have been able to explain it. "The meter is also somewhat loose, but odd lines are generally tetrameter, while even lines are generally trimeter. (There are exceptions: In a five-line stanza, for instance, lines one, three, and four are likely to have four accented syllables-tetrameter-while lines two and five have three accented syllables.) The rhymes generally alternate in an ABAB or ABABAB scheme, though again there are many exceptions . . ." It seems the exceptions have exceptions; so the only appropriate response to this is, "Huh?"

Perhaps I uttered that interrogative expression in my ninth-grade classroom, while raising my hand, of course. No doubt Mr. Lowry responded with further discussion of poetic form, rhyme and meter. No doubt I took copious notes and learned this stuff well enough to ace the test, and foster a lifelong soft spot for this wacky ballad. I don't think I could have if attached to negative feelings due to a sub-standard grade. Nevertheless, I regret not fostering my notebook in the same manner.

Wacky ballad, indeed! Think Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and remember how the urban legend of the time posited that the Beatles sang of an LSD trip. That turned out not to be so, but Coleridge did become an opium addict "(it is thought that "Kubla Khan" originated from an opium dream) . . ." From his biography on Wikipedia I learned that he began taking laudanum - tincture of opium - for pain relief around 1796, and it may have been prescribed for various ailments even in his youth. With no controlled substance laws, and no social stigma against using them, Coleridge, and many others of the Romantic Period, freely imbibed. So it's still a big MAYBE that the mariner's birth in 1798, two years after Coleridge began self-medicating with regularity, was drug induced. That notwithstanding, one cannot possibly spell either opium or laudanum from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. But you can almost get tincture if you substitute another vowel for the missing "u".

Coleridge, the son of a clergyman, makes a fair amount of religious references in Rime. "Like the sun, the moon often symbolizes G-d, but the moon has more positive connotations than the sun. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the sun and the moon represent two sides of the Christian G-d: the sun represents the angry, wrathful G-d, whereas the moon represents the benevolent, repentant G-d. . . . and generally favorable things occur during the night, in contrast to the horrors that occur during the day." I missed that, on every reading. I might have known it at age fourteen, but I forgot. Sorry, Mr. Lowery.

Yes, moments ago I realized I'd misspelled Mr. Lowery's name. He, or someone like him, IS listed in the telephone book. I'm not going to call, though. He might want to quiz me and, while I haven't lost any of my affection for the mariner, it just wasn't the same this time around. If you have to read some scholars dry old study guide in order to write intelligently about a piece you like, because you no longer remember why you like it, and you still can't figure it out after rereading the piece AND the dry old guide, then maybe some mysteries can't be solved. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right and You Can't Go Home Again.

That's part of it, but I don't think I ever gave Mr. Lowery enough credit. Somehow, the mariner spoke to me back in junior high. Although he didn't this time, a shadow of the old feeling still exists. Couldn't my teacher have spun a little magic of his own, something so potent it could linger for a lifetime? I think yes, and in so believing, there is only one appropriate response.

Thank you, Mr. Lowery, wherever you are.


Study guide: Coleridge's Poetry by SparkNotes available at www.sparknotes.com

NORA EPHRON MAKES ME FEEL BAD ABOUT MY ASS

We plunked our hungry selves onto the opposing benches of our booth at Friendly's in Leominster, Massachusetts. Yes, the home of Union Products, which would shortly stop production - after 49 years - of the iconic pink lawn flamingo. We'd seen that and other historical plastics during our just completed visit to the National Plastics Center Museum. The server retreated with our order and the conversation turned to the subject of my writing.

"I hope you won't take this the wrong way," Martha said. Uh-oh, I thought, this can't be good. I felt the wind desert my sails, the pin point approach my balloon; I prepared myself for a less than favorable assessment from one whose opinion I valued. Unnecessarily, because she'd only employed that preface to her next comment for fear that I was not a Nora Ephron fan. She told me my writing reminded her of Ephron's.

"You really think?" I asked, unable to agree or disagree, confirm or deny. I'd seen many of the films written by Ephron, and liked them. I thought I might have encountered a magazine piece or two, but couldn't cite anything specific. I recalled having my interest piqued while reading a review, a few months ago, of her new book - something about her neck. Finally, I made a mental inventory of the few facts I really knew about Nora Ephron: she's published, successful, some of her screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards, she's earned money for her writing, indeed, enough not to need a "day" job. Oh, and once, her kitchen was featured in a home magazine. It was a kitchen I would have if my income allowed for such things - like good kitchens. "I'll take that as a compliment," I told my friend.

In a serendipitous turn, the following day at one of my bookstore haunts, I passed a stack of Ephron's latest essay collection I Feel Bad About My Neck. Curious to learn if we really shared similarities I bought the book. Well, obviously - isn't that why we're here? What follows is my review, by way of personal musings, comparisons between Ephron and me, sometimes but not always pertaining to our writing.

In the first of fifteen essays we learn that Nora Ephron is, indeed, unhappy about her neck. Her dermatologist has told her the neck starts to go at forty-three. No mention appears as to when the neck finishes going. Perhaps it reaches an apex of going and then stops, or at least goes at a much slower pace thereafter. Perhaps it stops only for death.

I do have something in common with Ephron. Neither of us spends much time looking at ourselves in mirrors. As a result of this mirror avoidance, I had no idea of the condition of my neck. At eleven years past forty-three I steeled myself for a neck evaluation and approached my bathroom mirror with - as they say - trepidation.

They also say the real thing never lives up to the hype - good news in this case. My neck, while not the neck in a photograph I recalled from roughly ten years earlier, did not horrify me. A couple of horizontal lines, which could be the banded neck listed by Ephron in the litany of neck problems one might suffer from, but I didn't feel the need to wear turtlenecks and mandarin collars. In fact, turtlenecks draw adverse attention to my angular jaw and somewhat weak chin. So, unlike Ephron, I'll not succumb to the extra coverage, but continue to mitigate my broad shoulder expanse with square and v-necklines.

Had I stopped there, having made that decision, and turned away from the mirror everything would be fine. Once I'd voluntarily looked at the mirror for more than a few seconds, with eyes wide open, I realized I was surrounded, like some twisted through the looking glass horror, when I became aware of my rear view in the full length mirror on the bathroom door opposite. Being scantily dressed at that moment I saw the real problem - the enemy, so to speak - and it was my ass.

No doubt I gasped and uttered one of my tried and true questionable expressions that, in deference to readers with delicate sensibilities, I won't repeat. The sight was astonishing in that mine is not so much the stereotypical fat ass, nor one you'd say had the - desirable in some schools of thought - junk in the trunk. It's just, well, all over the place. I mean it begins not far below my shoulder blades and doesn't end at my thighs. No, my thighs are just dual extensions of my hideous ass. And that's not all; it seems to wrap around my sides - roughly where my waistline would be if I had one - and encroach upon my already compromised abdomen. Am I the only woman who has part of her ass in front? No wonder I stopped wearing tops that required tucking.

You're probably thinking: eat a salad, take a walk, get off your ass! Here's the amazing part - when not reading or writing I spend a fair amount of time on my feet. Even at work, where I do have a chair and computer, I still find numerous reasons to stand, walk, climb stairs, reach, bend, lift and carry. My history is peppered with exercise: walking, running, biking, road races, aerobics classes, weight machines, tennis lessons, parent-child baseball games, and more. Granted, consistency was never my strong suit. I logged my share of down time in order to recover from injury or illness. I've actually spoken words similar to Ephron's statement in the exercise section of her essay Maintenance. "Every time I get into shape, something breaks."

In a desperate attempt to stop kvetching about my ass, instead of exercising, I returned to the book and focused on finding other areas of common ground, or even contrast. I found plenty of both, as in Ephron's second piece I Hate My Purse. I also don't do purses well and plan to look for the New York City MetroCard tote bag that finally solved most of her purse problems.

On the other hand, Ephron describes accompanying a friend on a shopping trip to Paris where the friend's goal was to purchase a vintage Kelly bag - the "Hermes bag made famous by Grace Kelly in the 1950s." Who knew? While I do have a few friends who could afford to go to Paris and still have enough money to buy a twenty-six hundred dollar handbag, they probably wouldn't. And I definitely would not be along for the ride.

Anyway, the friend is advised to get her new bag waterproofed immediately as it would devalue by half if caught in the rain. Upon leaving the Paris flea market they stop for lunch at a bistro, where outside it begins to rain. "My friend's eyes began to well with tears. Her lips closed tightly. In fact, to be completely truthful, her lips actually pursed."

We must share comic sensibilities, Ephron and I, as I do get her sense of humor. It might be some of what my friend finds similar about our writing. It's possible I may occasionally turn a phrase in an Ephronesque manner. I am probably too close to the situation to cite actual passages, but at times my mind's ear recalls having heard me make pronouncements in approximately the same language as I'm reading on her pages. On some deeper level we might possess a kindred spirit that belies our vastly different upbringings and paychecks.

I came to discover, in the closing essay Considering the Alternative that on the subjects of loss, of grief and mourning, aging and looking around at all those "long shadows" we are kindred spirits, indeed. "My friend Judy died last year. She was the person I told everything to. She was my best friend . . ." Having lost my best friend, the man I'd had a relationship with for over 20 years, five months earlier, I felt the strongest connection to Nora (if I may call her Nora) ever in the course of my reading. She continued, "I want to talk to her . . . have lunch with her . . . want her to give me a book she just read and loved. She is my phantom limb . . ." I stopped reading there - phantom limb. Instead of seeing printed words that recalled earlier utterances of mine, those two words named what I had been feeling for months and couldn't grasp. Those two words - for me - became what this book was really about.

I read I Feel Bad About My Neck - the first time - and began this essay in October, 2006. Readers of this blog will note similar dates on its first few entries, then a 19-month gap before the next one. I thought a nice project, like writing book reviews, might be just what I needed. I'll read books anyway, I thought, so why not write about it. I didn't foresee that grief would erode my powers of concentration to the point that I'd become almost a non-reader with no motivation to write.

In keeping with the aging theme and returning to the topic of the neck, I've recently learned that I have three degenerated discs in mine. I'm shorter than I once was as those cervical vertebrae have compressed and sunk further into my back. The doctor tells me: no crunches, no aerobics, and no running, not even vigorous house cleaning. I went to this doctor to get fixed so I could return to running but instead learned that I might never - AND - that I can't even replace it with other useful exercise. So, like Nora Ephron, I feel bad about my neck. For me it's not my neck's appearance, but what the fallout from this affliction - the kid gloves treatment and non exercise - is going to do to my ASS!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

A story told in two voices, but by the same person. Jacob Jankowski is ninety, or ninety-three, one or the other. He can't remember which as he languishes in a nursing home. His younger voice - age twenty-three in 1931 - describes the loss of both parents just as he is about to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. His grief is compounded by the further loss of his parents' home, mortgaged to pay his tuition, and his father's veterinary business, which has been accepting eggs and produce as payment from his Depression-weary neighbors. The bank takes all leaving Jacob homeless and without a veterinary practice to step into.

Jacob's attempt to write his exams comes to naught so he turns in a blank test, walks away from campus and keeps walking, following train tracks, until he collapses in unknown territory. He hops the next train which turns out to be that of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

The circus is owned by Uncle Al, a self-serving miscreant and bottom feeder who picks up performers, equipment, and animals each time another circus crashes on the rocks of the Depression. Al aspires to Ringling status so chooses to ignore the small matter of final exams and hires Jacob as his ivy league educated veterinarian, placing him in charge of the menagerie and reporting to August, the equestrian director and superintendent of animals.

August is the classic charming and charismatic abuser who begs forgiveness while claiming joke gone awry. His younger wife, Marlena, is the star of the equestrian act. Jacob's first patient is one of her horses who eventually must be put down. The growing attraction between the young pair does not go unnoticed, especially by August who, as a paranoid schizophrenic, might have imagined it even if not there.

Periodically the story moves to present day. Nonagenarian Jacob shares his nursing home existence during the weekend when a circus is in town, and located within sight of the home. He is anxious for Sunday, when his "people" will come and take him to the show. He worries about losing his faculties and laments that his offspring are not interested in his old stories. His only ally is nurse Rosemary, who at times thinks he calls her Rosie.

Rosie is the elephant that Uncle Al acquires from a defunct circus. He believes an elephant act is his ticket to reaching Ringling's level. Jacob, as Rosie's caretaker, develops a relationship with her even as she seems to ignore commands and misbehave, while August beats her for her assumed lack of cooperation. It takes Jacob to assemble the puzzle pieces of Rosie's history and discover why such an intelligent creature can't seem to follow directions.

An interesting aside to this novel is that Gruen said she used parallels with the biblical story of Jacob. A few items come to mind - the name, obviously, resting his head on a flat rock, the many trials. However, unless one is a bible scholar or has recently completed a reading of those chapters the connections might go unnoticed. The story stands on its own without it but some readers might enjoy looking for similarities. On the other hand, Gruen's Jacob lost his birthright when the bank took his family home and business. This in opposition to the biblical Jacob having usurped the birthright of his older twin, Esau. Let the reader be the judge.

Gruen has meticulously researched all the historical details: circus folk, animal acts, trains, the Depression, even Jamaican ginger extract - jake - and the paralysis known as jake leg that struck tens of thousands of victims during later Prohibition.

Be prepared for a somewhat outlandish ending, but in spite of it's oddity, readers will not begrudge it of the elderly Jacob. On the contrary, we will want it for him.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

How did I get to this age never having read Hemingway? I may have touched on a lone short story included somewhere in an anthology, but nothing reaching the magnitude of this novella. The biblical Book of Job retold as a fish tale. Indeed, Hemingway has written what would have happened if Job had gone to sea in an attempt to earn a new living as a fisherman. The patience! The pureness of spirit! The continuation of hope! Hemingway's Job is actually Santiago, an aging mid-20th-century Cuban fisherman, a simple and hard-working man who follows baseball and admires the great DiMaggio. The language of the story is equally simple and hardworking.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

Throughout the 92-page Scribner Classics edition I read - with illustrations! - Hemingway remains true to the spare prose promise of that first sentence. And yet we never feel a lack of information. On the contrary, readers may feel a need to massage a hand cramp after the old man spends his first night gripping the line on which he has hooked an as yet unseen giant marlin. Many will feel as parched for a drink of water as when they read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. This brief masterpiece draws readers in and involves them in the story.

Published in 1952 it received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, and was specifically mentioned when Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.